America's Scariest Roads?

[Paolo99]

Roads aren't scary, conditions can soon alter that though, but that's more to do with the weather than the road.

There are a few "interesting" ones I can think of though , especially when in a 30 ft RV !

In no particular order.

Priests grade, [CA120] the old road especially.

With you on that one, although I don't really find any roads that scary. My missus does though. She's already panicking about the Going-To-The-Sun-Road we'll be attacking in September. I keep telling her that it'll be so busy we'll only manage 15mph but she won't listen.

For me, the scariest thing about driving in America is the, er, local drivers.

[illusion]

Surprised there's no mention yet of the Million Dollar Highway (Colorado 550 from Ouray to Durango). Long stretches of severe drop-offs, with the added bonus of regular semi traffic passing the other way.

We drove that route once and didnt find it scary at all, just a nice road ;). Its impossible to find the scariest road, it all depense on who you are talking to..

[Kestrel]

I loved the Saddle Road on the Island of Hawaii. It is a bit bumpy and narrow on the Kona side, but no real problem if you just take it easy. The one way bridges are well marked and easily handled by being polite. On the Hilo side the road is wider, smooth and a delight to drive. Some rental cars prohibit driving on the Saddle Road, but my contract from Avis had no such prohibition.

[Foy]

I'll nominate Montana Highway 38, also known as Skalkaho Highway, to the list. MT 38 runs between Philipsburg in the Flint Creek Valley and Hamilton in the Bitterroot Valley. The pass is around 7,100' and is closed in winter. The upper reaches as it approaches Skalkaho Pass from east or west are gravel and completely without guardrails. On the Hamilton side, between Skalkaho Falls and the Pass, it's 800-1,000' down to Daley Creek below, no guardrails, and little else to stop you or slow you down if you go over. Pretty much a guaranteed Death Plunge. Oh, and there's active logging at any point in time, so one gets to share the road with downhilling log trucks. They only claim half the road, but the problem is they claim their half out of the middle. A couple of weeks ago, we traversed from east to west and a log truck was a few minutes behind us. We stopped to advise a young couple of the oncoming truck. Each was astride their own dual-sport motorcycle. The guy looked pretty shaken; his lady seemed about to burst into tears. We took an extra few minutes to enjoy the Falls and let the log truck pass, not wanting to wonder if/when he'd catch us and under what circumstances.

Foy

[Mark Sedenquist]

Wow, sounds like a great candidate for scariest.... GOOD WORK!

When I'm on logging roads, I always monitor the CB channels for the haul roads, Loggers call out their location and whether they are going up-hill or down about every mile or so. That informal system has probably saved my life at least twice!

A close family member (& his young bride) were killed in a head-on on such a road in Montana many years ago...

Mark

[Foy]

Mark,

That's just awful about your family's loss. I'm so sorry to know of it.

That very set of circumstance was a major reason why I was keen to install my son's old CB in the pickup before the trip. Trouble was: it pretty much stopped working once I arrived in Montana, and I was not in position to fix it or have anybody look at it until I emerged from the Rock Creek canyon via the Skalkaho Highway. That being the case, I was without "ears" all the way up and over the Pass and down the hairy side. I assigned my wife to "look out behind us" duty in order to keep my eyes out of the mirrors and on the roadway ahead, a chore she welcomed since she doesn't care for drop-offs before her.

Our friends and traveling companions were in their truck in front of us and we did have our FRS handheld radios, so we at least had the heads-up on uphill traffic. The guy in the log truck was stopped at the Pass and was busy checking tires and his chain binders as we passed. We were very surprised when he caught up with us minutes after we stopped at the Falls. This clearly was not his "first rodeo", and just as clearly any uphill traffic would have encountered him with little time to react, and with the drop-off on THEIR side. Pretty hairy stuff.

Foy

[US15552]

I just returned from a roadtrip where I drove on a good number of the scary roads that posters have listed. Since I drove a Toyota Sienna with no trailer I guess I missed the scariness of driving a huge RV, a semi with a heavy load, etc. Trail Ridge Road, US-6 across Loveland Pass, US-550 from Ouray to Durango, CO-82 across Independence Pass, Pikes Peak, Mt Evans, East Portal Road in Black Canyon NP were all interesting, fun drives with the no guard rails thrill factor. Slow down and use low gear if you want to live to enjoy another such drive. The drive I enjoyed most was Old Fall River Road in RMNP. It has plenty of loose gravel, hairpin turns and steep, unguarded dropoffs. I did take a good look at Shafer Trail Road (4WD only) in Canyonlands NP from above. That is a high pucker factor road. The scariest driving I did on the 4200 mile trip was on US-287 between Amarillo and Fort Worth in Texas driving in rain, smoke and fog with other traffic around me.

[Southwest Dave]

Hello and welcome to the RTA forums !

Sounds as though you had quite an eventful trip with some great 'driving roads'. Unfortunately we couldn't drive the 'Old fall river Rd' because of the RV restriction, nor did we have the time to rent a jeep to do the 'Shafer Trail', but both are firmly on my "to do" list, as is Independence pass, that was iced/snowed in when we drove through.

Enjoy the forums !

[US15552]

Renting a Jeep in Moab, UT is high on my list of things to do in the future. Canyonlands NP is amazing.
We did get a little bewildered late at night and ended up driving on Devil's Gulch Road near Estes Park in blackness. That was an interesting experience.

[dbt94gt]

We took a month off in 1991 and drove from south Florida to Idaho and stopped everywhere between. The highlight was the Magruder Corridor through the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. AMAZING!!! We had an 89 Jeep Cherokee 4wd, which I never got to use in Florida and we were not used to the high elevation roads. My wife was frantic the entire drive. We camped one night amidst the fall elk hunters and ducked every time we heard a shot in the distance. The road itself was awesome. Right after we topped the highest point and started down a long single lane descent probably a mile long another truck was headed toward us. Since I was closer to a turnout I got to back-up for about 200 yards with a mountain on one side and sheer drop of at least 1000 feet on the other and a screaming person between. I backed into the mountain several times, but we survived. What a fabulous and scary drive.