Winter driving in certain areas

Runroblarun · December 6, 2016

Hi guys, if any of you have followed my topic in Beginning RV'ing youll know that I've just run across America from Mobile to Santa Monica and we'd been using the RV as a support vehicle, driving 10 miles or so up the road and stopping for a break before moving on etc, sometimes just at the side of the road. We have a Class C 2004 Fleetwood Jamboree. Seeing as I'd gone this far, I figured I may as well turn around...just keep on going! Our second leg will take us north from Santa Monica to Death Valley and Vegas, then we try to make our way to Nashville, Washington and Boston, via Phoenix (presume Flagstaff way is a bad idea that time of the year), Albuquerque. Now I was wondering what experience had of the roads this time of year thinking we would get to Phoenix week 3-4 of January, Albuquerque about 10 days later, Nashville early March, with a crossing of the Appalachians and an arrival into Washington at the end of March? Are there any snow/ice related demons we should be aware of along that route? We don't mind sitting tight for a day or two if weather is atrocious, but don't want to run down a snowy alley that could force a turn around if it showed no signs of clearing? Bruce T has pointed out already that there's no such thing as guaranteed predictability, which is something we'll take on board, but I was wondering what advice people had who were familiar with these actual areas at that time of the year could offer?
Cheers

Rob

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AFchap · December 6, 2016

I-40 East of Albuquerque to Santa Rosa can have very severe winter conditions at times ...very unpredictable in that area.

oscarvan · December 6, 2016

Crossing Appalachians into DC/Boston in March is too early. I would plan no earlier than end of April, later if possible. Can it be done? Of course. Could it be miserable? You bet.

Ray,IN · December 7, 2016

I-40 East of Albuquerque to Santa Rosa can have very severe winter conditions at times ...very unpredictable in that area.

The highway patrol closed I 40 just after we came East from Albuquerque one trip. When we stopped at Amarillo for the night, next morning I 40 was shut down for a few hrs. before we could again head East. You're right, very unpredictable area. At the time I was driving a Chevy dually 4X4,towing our 5er.

Kirk W · December 7, 2016

You are planning a route that could be totally impassable at times, even in places like Nashville. If you do this, you need to be prepared for blizzard conditions at times and carry survival gear with you. While life threatening situations may be rare in modern times, people do still die out on our roads at times if stuck in a blizzard beyond help. I assume that you plan to keep running so be prepared to deal with hypothermia as that is always a potential problem and can even take your life. What you plan can be done and you may even have reasonably good weather all of the way, but you could also experience some nasty problems. Do you have a driver who has experience in driving on ice & snow? Are you familiar with travel in "white out" conditions? You are off to a great start, so plan carefully and don't let a major storm ruin things.

I spent 18 years doing service work all winter while dealing with the sort of roads you might face. I can tell you that while you may be lucky, the risk is something that you need to prepare for. Better to be ready for the worst and have it not happen than to get caught out on the road without proper equipment and knowledge.

Barbaraok · December 7, 2016

What about it being WINTER makes you feel this is the time to try crossing the continental divide a good thing to do? In the winter people use I-10 as the route across the southern states and HOPE that they don't encounter ice in NM or TX. I-40, as slow as you are going to be going, would be guaranteed several stops for storms to past by. East Coast in the spring is just one storm after the other. We did East Coast one spring, never again. Go up the West Coast in the spring, down the East Coast in the fall.

Runroblarun · December 8, 2016

AFChap, Oscarvan, RayIN, duly noted. It looks as there is a fair amount of "at the mercy of the Gods" about this. Yikes!

Kirk - thanks mate! She has reasonable experience of it in the UK, but when your weather decides to kick up, it is far worse than what we get. She also has no experience of a vehicle the size of a 30' RV in inclement conditions. I unfortunately have to keep running in this, but yeah, I'm thinking some days are likely to be just walking, fully winterised up,clothing wise, possibly leaving the RV and me pushing on with a cart, tent and survival gear, until the weather breaks.

Barbaraok - It's a matter of set route that I need to follow to mimic the route of Forrest Gump and also the time of the year as I need to be in Boston by April and also to get to San Fran again by early September to allow me to get over the Rockies by October. I don't WANT to be in this area at this time of the year, but it's the best compromise for me, unfortunately. This isn't a trip with the aim of necessarily seeing the states at their best, just all the places I need in the right order!

If anyone has any good route advice ideally missing the worst of the altitude and snow, but allowing me not to retrace the route of I-10 which was my first crossing (it has to be at least continually north of I-10 to fit the criteria unfortunately), I'd be very grateful as I'm aware my google mapping might not necessarily be the only option! 93, Phoenix, 60?

Cheers Rob

Barbaraok · December 9, 2016

It is going to snow up in the Arizona mountains this weekend - and it only get's worse. There will be snow up on the Mogollon Rim from now until February. Neither 93 or 60 are interstates so when the snow starts flying they become covered and wait to be plowed until after I-40 is done. And there is a CLIMB, quite a climb to get up on the rim. I don't remember Forest Gump running that route in the winter.

Runroblarun · December 9, 2016

It is going to snow up in the Arizona mountains this weekend - and it only get's worse. There will be snow up on the Mogollon Rim from now until February. Neither 93 or 60 are interstates so when the snow starts flying they become covered and wait to be plowed until after I-40 is done. And there is a CLIMB, quite a climb to get up on the rim. I don't remember Forest Gump running that route in the winter

He would have run in the winter as he ran non-stop throughout the year and if it was at the expected paces stated in the film he would have probably crossed the Rockies and run through Montana and Mid-West in the height of winter, they just didn't show that in the seven minutes of the scene. Of course, it's only a story so we can be flexible, but to do it in the time span we are doing it in, it happens that we'll be in this area. Ideally, looking at the map shown in the film, I'd be running right through Flagstaff, which probably isn't a great idea. As such I was going to be a little more south, but I can't go as low as the I-10. Unfortunately I can't just do laps around Santa Monica track until March and I have to take the climbs where they come, maybe I'll find a lower altitude route!! The Mogollon Rim sounds like something out of The Lord of the Rings!

Mike and Claudia · December 12, 2016

IH-40 between Abq. and Amarillo can be a very adventurous area in the early part of the year. It shuts down due to blizzards a LOT!

We drove in a dually one year. Shew! Got into a white-out one year and weren't sure we would EVER make it. Ran across a guy that had hit a ditch with his car. He foolishly was standing on the middle of the road trying to flag us down. I thought we were going to mow him down before we could stop. Then we nearly didn't get the momentum started back up again. :blink: As soon as we got to the next town, which took a while we shut it down, then we had to go back East because the road was closed west of us. Yowza!

Runroblarun · December 13, 2016

Urg.

Chalkie · December 13, 2016

The Texas Panhandle and northern New Mexico can get ugly in the winter, and personal experience is that is due to ice more than snow although both are possible. Four years ago we were heading from Colorado to Austin, TX in late January (fortunately without the trailer). We ran into sleet and freezing rain outside of Amarillo. The roads were not too bad so we continued on south to Lubbock. There it started getting worse so we decided to hole up for the night. In the morning we got up to ice covered everything, it was 1/2" deep on the truck. Surprisingly, the highways were not too bad because they had enough residual heat and they were starting to melt off. I put it 4WD and got behind an 18-wheeler that was going slow. We let him be the judge of the road. Just outside of town we saw a lot of flashing lights ahead and thought perhaps there had been an accident. There was one of sorts, and it turned out funny to us, because there were 2 local police and a state trooper all down in a ditch where they had slid off the highway.

Two years ago our kids coming from Austin for Christmas had to detour a couple of hundred miles out of their way to avoid similar circumstances only with lots more road closures all the way up into Oklahoma and southeastern Colorado.