You'd think I'd have learned my lesson about altitude. Then again, I didn't really know I was heading into high altitude until I started seeing some snow on the ground. Then there was a lot of snow. Then there were no patches of ground without snow.. It got cold pretty quick. Driving down a road with 8 ft of snow on either side, the sun going down, not sure if I'll make it to lower elevation before it gets dark, no phone signal.
Half an hour is all it took to go from a city which listed its elevation as 3900ft, to a sign that said 8300ft half buried in snow. Soon after (but with less snow, thankfully), a sign that said:
Fortunately, not long after that the road started going down. I got most of the way down, found a campsite, and set up camp just as a storm was blowing in.
I'm trying to plan out the next week or so to get me to Seattle in time to catch a day or two of Potlatch. I won't have much time to stop in each place, but it shouldn't be too much of a rush - not more than 250 miles a day, which isn't too bad considering side trips. The biggest question is whether I should go to Salt Lake City or not - it's two days extra to get there and back, but it means I have a lot more freedom in where I go for Arizona and New Mexico, because I don't have to go through the four corners. But if I don't do Salt Lake now, I have a lot more freedom for Glacier National Park and Montana stuff... I think I'll probably do it, might as well. Like someone said - if I'm doing this trip, I might as well make the trip.
Once I get to/past Portland I'll have a little bit more freedom for staying a few days here and there, because I'll have a little over two weeks to get from Portland to Las Vegas. What should I spend my time on out there?
No comments:
Post a Comment