route planning (it's really hard to find free info about mountain highway grades)

[damnitnicole]

I know I've got a few truckers, ex-truckers, and general road-trippers reading here. I need your help.

I'm pulling a trailer from (metro) Phoenix to Norman, Oklahoma.

In the interest of not only gas mileage, but wear and tear on my van, I'm trying to find the least steep way uphill to get from here to I-40.

up AZ87, though Payson, and then along

Comments

[damnitnicole]

Interestingly, the best choices I've been given by Rennies who've gone these ways are:

- "Going up through Flagstaff is a bitch. It's straight up into the mtns.

I-10 through Tucson is pretty flat, and a good short cut is, taking 26 out of Demming up to I-25 in Hatch. Check it out on a map. It cuts off Las Cruces and saves some time. This is the way I went when hauling my 5th wheel."

and

- "you could go south to Florence take 287 from Florence south to 87 south to I- 10 to I-20 to Abilene, Texas. then you take Hwy 283 north ( just past Abilene) to Witchita Falls, KS then take I-44 north to Norman. Should be pretty much hill free the whole way.

PS I- 40 is under blizzard conditions through Kansas and north Texas through to Oklahoma, I'd take the south route if you can."

I think the second one is possibly more hill-cautious than I need, but the route the guy with the 5th-wheel took looks promising. I've taken the descending route on 17, headed south, and I know that going up it with the curves-on-hills full of college shitheads from Flagstaff zooming around will stress me.

I thought you'd been as far as CO? Or am I imagining things?

[anonymissity]

i would absolutely recommend you stay as far out of northern az as possible. those switchbacks, even for a normal car, are incredibly terrifying.

[damnitnicole]

Exactly.

[jhf]

Go with the people who have been there, natch. Most of my experience with climbing hills was in the Alleghenies; I have no f'ing idea how things look out that way.

[jhf]

I mean that kindly. I'm just sayin.

[damnitnicole]

Oh, no, it's fine. I put this up here and on Facebook at the same time, figuring rightly that somewhere in the mix, I'd get a good crop of helpful comments. I only poked you about it because I thought you'd been farther west than you have.

Although it's cool to hear from you either way!

[damnitnicole]

Steeeeep is how they look. %7 grades on super curvy roads with high speed limits and small guardrails between the road and the chasm.