driving from Nashville TN to Portland Oregon

[cathy]

Trying to determine best route for a drive as soon as tomorrow from Nashville TN to Portland Oregon may be dropping off some people in Salt Lake City. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Southwest Dave]

Hello and welcome to the RTA forums !

As in the "best" route, do you mean the quickest ? How long have you ?

The most direct route according to my mapping program is head to St Louis, then I70 to Kansas and then I29/80and then pick up 84 to Portland or drop into SLC and resume on I 15/84. Continuing on I70 to Denver then I25 to I80 is about the same time and gives you another option.

It always pays to check the weather forecast and road conditions before leaving so that you can adjust accordingly if need be. I would allow the best part of 5 day's to make the journey, more if you want to do some sight seeing.

[cathy]

Thank-you for the information, best should have been written safest, it is actually my son and 2 others heading to SLC then onto Portland. His start was delayed as he was snowed in, in Asheville now I feel pretty confident he is going to end up in another storm regardless of his route. Do appreciate the information which was passed along.

[Foy]

Hello cathy,

You can advise your son that approaching the northern sections of the SLC basin can be easier by taking I-84 west at the junction with I-80 some 50 miles east of SLC. Taking I-84 west to Ogden, thence south down I-15 towards SLC, avoids the last high spot along I-80, Parleys Summit, just outside of Park City. Parley's is + 7,000' in elevation and in times of heavy snowfall it can be something of a banzai run for the 10 miles and 3,000' drop into downtown SLC. Some even take the I-84 route when bound for central and southern SLC destinations, just to avoid Parleys.

Foy

[Mark Sedenquist]

One January, I came down this section with a nice coating of ice on the roadway and I can attest that this is a very exciting stretch of road! It took me an hour of playing frisbee once I reached the bottom to loosen my tight shoulders.... But it's all fun!

Mark