I-17 Flagstaff to Phoenix?

Just keep it under 80mph and your fine. Use jakes.

 

It’s not that bad driver, especially in these months with no chance of snow/ice. Used to run it fairly regularly for a while. Going N sucks more than going S because it takes forever to pull those grades.

The downgrades will start around Munds Park and once you get to Camp Verde, the worst of it is over. If you feel like you need to cool your brakes, the Cliff Castle Casino has truck parking and has decent, cheap food and a pretty decent selection of machines. Exit 289 if I recall but don’t quote me, it’s on the east side of the highway.

 

Never cared for it,watch out for the wildlife.

 

The Loves is in Chander and it fills by 2-3pm with guys parking all over the places by 5. The truck stops on I10 west fill up very early as well. If you want to stop at the pilot or J and it's going to be after 2pm, I'd reserve parking. There's a good chance you're going to have to kick someone out of a spot if you should up late. Rush hour starts about 3pm around the I17-I10 loop around downtown and spread from there. Traffic can be ridiculous heading out of Phoenix towards Flagstaff. 20-40 cars will park in the left lane to pass another car at 2 mph

 

Heavy construction on 17. Northbound is down to one lane for several miles. Road bed replacement. Southbound has intermittent closures for construction. The road is very bad. Tougher than a cob in lots of places.

Better to go West on 40 to Albuquerque, cut down on 25 to hatch, take 26 to 10, you come out in deming. It will be a little bit more than 40 to 17. But less steep grades and pulls.

The other option is 30 to 20 to 10. Not as fast as 40/17

 

If it were me, that travels that all the time, I'd go down in whatever gear keeps you at about 45 to 50 with jakes on high.

You can go faster, but that's supposing you are one of these guys that has a guarantee the road ahead of you is all clear.

Cause buddy, there ain't no place to go but over the side.

And if you let it get rollin' that heavy, you ain't gonna stop.

 

There is a series of downgrades as you descend from Flagstaff's 8000 feet roughly to the lower plain of Phoenix.

You really have to be careful on these series of grades at 80000 pounds.

I have always treated this pass as a mountain road. And applied my own set of ways to handle it with a 18 wheeler, that is slow enough to balance the jake and gravity but not so slow as to hold up people too much. Nor going any faster than necessary than to be safe coming down.

I recall having the jake near redline at about 35 or touch slower no braking all the way down. But there are places you get into a saddle and you can come off the jake a little bit and let her drift to cool the gauges a little until the next drop. With a emphasis on letting her drift.

There is nothing to do if she did get away from you downgrade there at 80000. One consolation to you it's a beautiful place to die.