Worst mountain

NOT a bad grade, but my scariest ever experience in the mountains, eastbound I-70 out of Vail CO.

Headed uphill, snowing, snow covered road.

Maybe a 1/4 mile ahead of me, a JB (could have been any carrier, but it was a JB) gets crosswise and comes to a dead stop, completely blocking the road. OK, no problem, I just slow down, and come to a full stop. And start sliding backwards!!

Feck me, pinching the seat for all I am worth! Well, I know that I have no control with the brakes locked and sliding, so I ease up on them, get the wheels rolling a bit, and am able to back onto the shoulder and get stopped. Lordy, Lordy.

Been driving only a little over a year at that point, and I must tell you that I said a small prayer of thanks.

Highway patrol came by a little later, and asked if I was all right, had water and food, etc. (I did.) Don't remember how long I sat there before the road opened up, but it was a number of hours, probably the next day.

Moral of the story: it DON'T have to be a bad grade to get nasty real quick!

May not be much of a story, but I have never forgotten it, I will tell you!

 

This has been a pretty good thread to read through, but at the end, you feel kind of old. The majority of these roads discussed used to be the main roads, and in that day, there was no air ride suspension, no power steering, no air conditioning, no spring actuated parking brakes, Big Don will probably remember this, we didn't have the braking capacity back then that we have now, the brake shoes were narrower. I remember Fancy Gap mentioned earlier, we didn't have I-77, we ran on US 52, they won't even let trucks on it now. There was mention made of I-64 east of Beckley, W VA, before they opened I-64 we used to run across US 60 over Armstrong, Sewell, and Gulley mountains, you had to wait your turn across these three mountains, you had to get the tractor off the pavement on one side and the trailer was off the pavement on the other side through the switchbacks on the curves, and this was when they were talking about going to forty five foot trailers, I think I may have had a forty eight across there a few times as well. As for MT Eagle, they have made improvements to this twice in my lifetime, but here again remember, we didn't have the braking capacity back then, and originally going east bound you were well advised to stop in and adjust the brakes at the top. Nowadays with the modern trucks and interstates it is a completely different situation. I don't know how the old timers before me made it back then with the old gasoline engines, heard a lot of stories, but glad I didn't live then. I like Big Don remember when they were building the tunnels west of Denver, in those days I was running one of those "big two fifty cummins diesel engines". We have it a lot better now.

 

Don't forget to love your neighbor as yourself

 

Did I miss something?

 

That's not how you hijack a thread.

I'm asking myself the same.

 

I wasn't driving big rigs back then. But I did drive Greyline Sight Seeing busses out of Denver, and was doing that while they were building Straight Creek Tunnel. (Now known as Eisenhour.) I also drove for Denver Tramway, the old Denver Metro bus line.

I also remember when there was no such thing as an "Interstate Highway." Old US 85 & 87 was known as "The Ribbon of Death. It took forever to get through Denver, no matter which way you were going. And then when they built those first freeways through Denver, Colorado Springs and Pueblo, they had no acceleration or deceleration lanes, exits and entrances were on both right and left sides of the road, and the turns were way too tight for even a 50 MPH speed limit in a lot of cases, and banked backwards, for some unknown reason.

 

I just remembered a place in eastern Nevada, I can't remember the name of the town, but it was on US 50 somewhere around Eureka or Eli, but when you were going east you would start up this pretty steep grade and start seeing speed limit signs ahead as you were coming in to this small town, the speed limit signs kept getting progressively slower as you came in to town and in right down town the speed limit was twenty five miles per hour but the comical thing was you never took your foot out of it, you were still pulling the grade and downshifting clear up through the middle of town pulling for all it's worth, and when you got out to the east end of town, you had to let off of it and slow down and go around this u-shaped curved to the left and get right back in to it still pulling the mountain, at this point you are looking right down on the town you just came through, there was still quit a ways to the top yet and several curves. But that was such a funny experience to see the speed limit signs go progressively smaller until you are down town at twenty five mph and still have kept your foot in it giving it all the fuel you could. I wish I could remember the name of that town, it kind of reminded you of an old mining town. I always wondered if the poor folks in that town ever got a good nights sleep, with the trucks always coming thru town and engines running full bore.

 

I'm thinking you might be talking about Austin, NV. I haven't been through there in at least forty years though. . .

 

That is EXACTLY the name of the town, I was thinking the name of the town was a two word name, but I went to google maps and hit the satelite button and it shows it clear as a bell, Austin, Nevada. I don't know of anywhere else that I have been that you can run wide open right through the center of town.

 

his signature is "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul. I just finished the rest for him.