Hostile Highways

Hey mack i am not really sure whereabouts i was but i was going eastbound and supposedly this ice storm took them by surprise....i did pull over and wait untill they brought the salt trucks in because my trailer had come around on me ...the "gorge" is a stretch of i-40 that starts right around asheville and is 20 miles of rollercoaster ride....it is right after the saluda and green river gorge on i-26 out of sc

 

I still remember the 2nd or 3rd time I rolled through there in my Pumpkin cabover came around a bend doing 50 and came on a Toyota backing up in the right lane (apparently they missed their exit), I hit the hazard lights and brakes and took the left lane to get by. I wish there'd been a cop there but they'd probably have let him off with a warning and ticketed me for using the left lane (in the gorge trucks are restricted to the right lane and 50 mph). I am very glad I was ignoring the Super Truckers behind me and keeping below the limit.

 

I live about 25 miles from the gourge in Tennessee, I get to travel it or monte eagle every week most times more than once. Going through the gourge you just about have to turn your cb off or the ones behind you will just burn you out. The best part of traveling the gourge is not being the first truck. It dont matter how fast you are traveling, you are holding up someone else. The speed limit is 50 MPH for trucks and I have traveled it at 55 or so but if you are in front you get all the cussing you need to hear. I am always glad to be in 3rd or 4th.
I dont like traveling Jellico Mountain, the constuction makes it even worse. It is just not my favorite place to travel.

 

Don't any of you guys run west? Donner or 3 Sisters in a blizzard? EL Cahon when the Sante Anna's are up? We used to run Mt. Eagle and the Gorge with no jakes. I-68 is nothing compared to some of those grades on US-30 in PA.

Edit:

With today's technology, if you use your head and adjust your driving for whatever situation or weather conditions you should have no problems on any of these hills except the one I mentioned on US-30 in PA. That one is a killer and that is why they don't like trucks on it.

Back before the interstate system (I was a baby) is when these hills got famous. It is also when they were singing songs about them and telling stories. The stories that had all of us scared when we were new drivers.

If you see a truck on the run-a-way truck ramp or with smoking brakes, something broke or the drivers knows not what he is doing. The old run-a-way truck ramps were notorious for killing drivers, some were famous and still are. Like the ones on 64 in Virgina. How many of you remember when I-64 turned into US-60 and you had to 2 lane it through the mountains. That was not that long ago.

 

I cut my teath on the grapevine and cabage hill. The toughest hill that I know of out east is I-40 in eastern Tennasee. Virginnia can be tough in places but nothing when they are checking for chains on Donner.

 

The safest way to go thru Donner or the sisters in a blizzard is to park it and wait till they plow some of it out. I run west every week and never had a reason to push it any further when the chain laws were up. Safety comes first.

 

This is very true.