West Coast Mountains

No exaggerating here.

Here is a Video from our own Scottie67 that shows Cabbage in relatively good weather. It's in Eastern Oregon and one of the few ways to get out eastbound and a pass to over westbound. When in the right season it can be very nice out there.

It's not my luck though, Ive always run it in the winter storms and such. Once in a while I'll pull a video here and there and put it up.



He does somewhere have a good one that shows how to run Cabbage from the top Scale House on town eastbound with several cameras to show different situations.

Eastern Mountains are pretty steep. Take Townhill on I-70 south of Breezewood PA on the PA Turnpike. This one is about 7 miles or so 6% maybe more or less. The view east across the entire valley to the next ridge is amazing when morning fog is burned off.

If you took say US322 across westward towards 80 you hit a steeper set of mountain working for that truck, Hopefully coming back down you do have a Jake brake. My trainer Mr Ed insisted on using no jake some of the time in weather related problems because its good training. The megas of the time would be in the ditch at the bottom all crying for a heavy wrecker to come get them out, but we never had any trouble. And that one I call my first mountain for formal focused mountain training.

In school we scooted over Big Savage and a couple of others but once you understood as a permit student that going down is not that scary or hard then they put you on bigger hills. Or put on you routes that you generally do not take a big truck in, One was called Notchcliff Road off Rte 143 just off the Gunpowder River that comes out the hills and woods as a unpainted pavement at Long Green Road. You don't take a big truck through there, there isnt any reason to. Perhaps to see if the trainee has a problem with it.

I enjoyed the east very much. But when I got west I really started to have fun. I once come through A'qu'que (I cannot ever spell that city.. it's I-40 at I-25)

Anyway, I see this massive straight down grade as far as I could see by eye. My first time on it ever.

I set the truck up for 40 and settled in. It will be a while before bottom.

Now you can imagine with me, scardy cat at 40 did to the west bounders coming out there. Radio lit up. Everyone in the world was telling let's go get on that thing you scady cat! He so young he aint saved yet. ANY you Mommies lose a kid just now? etc.

Eventually they found the right buttons and I had her at 90. Everyone ellse was still passing. I took her out of gear got it about 118 or so. Now I was not being passed so much. Here I am herded with 115 or so trucks being passed by faster trucks in the left and cars trying to get ahead of everone.

I was happy. for about 20 minutes until I hit the other side to pull out of that valley. 115 became 70, governor kicked in at 65, wind kicked me to 52 and finally down to 38 loaded upgrade.

The trash talking started up again. Humiliation sunk in when JBH, Swift and so on passed me with lines of trucks impatiently waiting for them to get back over.

By Flagstaff I pretty much had that radio off.

 

Knight lets you run western 11 right out of 10 to 14 day CDL school

 

While that may technically be true, it makes it sound much worse than that descent really is.

With today's technology advancements, steep grades aren't as big a factor as they used to be [many decades ago] in regards to gross weights under 80k. As long as your equipment is in good shape and you don't get stupid, you'll be okay. Snow and packed snow is the bigger issue.

 

Of course not!

 

Rated as one of the 5 most dangerous by who? There are plenty of lists out on dangerous stretches of road in the US, and if you're basing it on number of accidents or fatalities, I-80 west off of Donner barely registers, at least according to DOT statistics. Yes it is 40 miles down hill but only about 5-7 miles of that is at a 5% grade or more and spread out over that 40 miles. The rest is gently sloping road that is easy to adjust your speed on. There are two runaway truck ramps on that stretch of road, and in the 40 years I've been traveling that area I've never seen a truck use either one. The worst stretch of steep grade in California is I-5 north coming over the Grapevine just north of LA. Just in the last 3 years I've seen 4 trucks use the emergency ramps there, and a number of trailers burning on the side of the highway. The eastbound side of Donner is much worse for accidents in the winter, especially the stretch from Truckee to the Nevada state line. When the road is snow covered there are always chained up trucks sliding off the side, although few fatalities.

 

Also don’t forget, it’s mandatory on your first trip out west to stop at the Arrowhead and pick up your “I survived Cabbage Hill” t-short because Cabbage is so big and scary.....

 

Your one of those that makes that false judgement about donner, I happen to know it very well. I lived in Reno for ten years and some weeks I'd go back and forth over that hill twice a day.

 

Define "false judgement". I have lived on the California side of Donner for 41 years, so I'll see your 10 years and raise you 31 more years. If you follow the recommended speed limit and adjust your speed according to your load, it's no worse than any one of a thousand grades across the US. If you use common sense and good judgement as any good driver should always do, it's not a big deal. Stop trying to make it into some truck destroying monster, because it isn't.

 

Okee dokee Muskogee.

Clearly you don't understand how deceiving the Westside is.

 

Whatever