The Worst Roads You Ever Traveled!!

[dscluchfc]

Originally Posted by reinergirl

Do you have a high tolerance for heights and dropoffs? LOL! I remember there was a warning sign about it being an unmaintained road but by then it was way too late to turn around. This was a couple years ago and I'm a New Englander (will drive in a blizzard).... still wouldn't take that road in anything bigger than a motorcycle!!! ps my husband says I exaggerate but I maintain he was too busy driving to be scared!

By the way I said 35 minutes in my original post , I should have said 35 MILES and actually it turns out its more like 47 miles. So much for exaggeration!

Another review Cottonwood Canyon Road, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah

I have done the road in the tow vehicle...no problems because it was dry.

GO FOR IT!!!!

[tpi]

Its been a few years but at the time, highway 80 over Donner pass was the worst interstate I've towed on. Buckboard concrete, potholes, eroded surface. Plus construction zones coned down to one lane, cones erratically placed with concrete barrier on the other side. Just a delightful experience towing a newish Airstream trailer.

[Gene]

tpi, we were on that road several years ago too when it was under construction. The concrete was worn down to a rough gravel surface and the concrete barriers were much too close.

But there are so many bad roads—some in no particular order:

1. I-70 in the Limon area is new concrete with expansion joints that resonate with the TV and trailer.

2. Several years ago I-70 on the east side of Vail Pass had ruts about 4" deep running along it where the paving had broken up. It's been repaired.

3. Any road with frost heaves in northern Canada and Alaska can be bad, but some of the worst are the last 100 miles or so before the Alaska border in Yukon.

4. The last couple of miles in BC on the Cassair Hwy before the Yukon border had the worst washboard of all time. It looked like the contractor had abandoned it.

5. A lot of roads in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland when we were there in 2004.

6. Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in Brooklyn was pothole city in 2008.

7. Some concrete hwys in southern California also resonate.

8. Black Bear Road into Telluride is one of the scariest roads of several such old mining roads in Colorado. We haven't been on that one, but when you are in Telluride and look up the face of the mountain and look at it, you may not want to try it, especially in a full size pickup. We have been on a lot of these roads, some way off camber, hoping no one is coming the other way. One of the worst is Red Hill where I followed a Toyota pickup going down it sideways about 30 years ago.

9. The Dempster Hwy from Dawson City, Yukon, to Inuvik, NWT, is well maintained, about 500 miles long, goes through beautiful land, but when it rains, wait 'til it dries out because it turns to grease. We didn't wait and it was two days of tense driving.

10. West Virginia Turnpike—they should pay you to use it.

11. I-70 in Illinois.

12. We've been to Chaco Canyon twice and I didn't think it was that bad for a dirt road, but it was dry when we were there and I guess it had been graded recently. We were lucky.

13. Old 66 in Arizona west of Kingman has some very narrow parts with many blind curves and it slow driving. This is the way roads were before WWII.

14. North of Chicken, Alaska, from the cut off to Canada to Eagle, Alaska, has some very narrow sections and many, many, many blind curves.

I'm sure I could think of more given time, but there is a sample. Generally the more densely populated a place is, the worse the roads may be because of lots of traffic. Mountain roads are expensive to maintain and build, and places with severe winters mean lots of potholes. Most of Canada seems to have better roads than the US.

Gene

[Ben4762]

Another vote for West Virginia Turnpike

[rtaylor537]

A third vote for the W Virginia turnpike.

[xrvr]

A 4th for the WV turnpike mainly the right lane. zz

[halimer]

We have done a lot of the roads that were mentioned above. When we return to Long Island, NY from the mainland all roads are HORRIBLE: The approach to and the George Washington Bridge, Cross Bronx Expressway(Pirannha Exwpy), Gowanus Expwy, Brooklyn-Queens Expwy. They are potholed and always under construction. These are the main roads to get a trailer onto the Long Island. Depending on the time of day you can be surrounded by a lot of nutsy in a rush local commercial truckers(long haul guys are pretty good) and other driving idiots.
After going to Alaska last year, towing our AS, the worst portion of the road and drive was the last 2 1/2 hours going through NJ and NY City.

Mark

[SteveH]

ALL the roads are bad in Alaska, but the one to Chicken from the South is so bad it shouldn't even be on the map!

[Bob Thompson]

No question about it for me. I've been over I-80 Donner Pass and it's bad, but doesn't compare to a trip we made from Presidio, Texas to Creel and the Copper Canyon in Mexico. In the first section to Chihuahua, the speed limit was 50 but anything over 35 was horrible. Our cat got motion sick. It wasn't bad up the hill out of Chihuahua, but a few of the towns to follow were horrible. Some had speed limits of 15 mph and that was waaaaaay tooooooo fast. More like 5 mph if you didn't want to tear the bottom out of the trailer. Once in Creel, we cut down a Michelin on the trailer pulling into the Holiday Inn RV Park. We won't go back.

[LawChick]

I love this thread. It's helpful when we're getting ready to make road plans. I wish everyone would post current information on bumpy bad roads they encounter! Sure want to avoid them.

Our contribution to "bad roads" is a little stretch of road in Lake Village, Arkansas, which takes one out to Lake Chicot State Park.

We were coming back from Florida and decided to camp on the lake. I remembered the park being a nice place.

BUT, the road was like driving on railroad ties. We had been 2400 uneventful (no troubles) miles, and I think the rivets we popped out of the front panel were definitely popped on that road (a couple of hundred miles from home). It was only a few miles, but terrible! Couldn't find a good place to turn around or a way off it, or we would have forgotten the park and went back to Highway 65. Poor Esmerelda took a beating. We were bungied down as usual, but if we hadn't been, all the drawers would have been out!

On the way in, we saw a large number of RVs in a park on the main highway (65) in Lake Village. We wondered why they were camped there - when the state park is nearby and a good place. Now we know - and wanted to share the information. Until that road from town out to the park is fixed, it's no place for a beloved AS.

Agree that I-20 in Louisianna is horrible! And 65 from Tallulah, La into Arkansas is a bumpy ride, too. Terrible railroad crossings, too. I-20 through Jackson, MS, thank God, is fixed. Highway 49 to Hattiesburg has some bumpy parts near little towns out of Jackson. It used to be a nightmare. But nothing beat that little highway out to the park!

[eubank]

On our recent trip, we drove one that, well, wasn't bad in the usual sense: It was paved and smooth, and the curves weren't too bad at all. But it had the steepest, longest grades that I think I've ever tried: 14%. Pedal to the metal in first gear on the way up; first gear and holding the brakes on the way down.

And that road was BIA 13 over Buffalo Pass, Navajo Nation. Wonderful scenery, but just not intended for the RVing tourist. (Ah, duh. I wonder if that's what they intended with that sign about max length of rig before the pass?)


Lynn

['55 Airlight]

Average speed for five hours about 15mph. Weather was good, truck was strong, and at the start I observed two passenger vans towing empty river rafting trailers coming down the road -- or I never would've tried it. (A notorious route for several wintertime deaths.) Spectacular!

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_Camp_Road>