Your Most Harrowing Drive
 

I've been reading a few of these posts and noticed where people have mentioned driving on roads or bridges that unnerved them and I got to thinking about what were my most harrowing drives. Several come to mind, but the scariest to me was the drive up Pikes Peak. The road to the top of Pikes Peak is (or was) dirt with hairpin curves and a drop-off on one side of hundreds of feet with no railings. Plus you're meeting traffic and if you're on the side of the road nearest the drop-off, your heart ends up in your throat.

The Beartooth Highway has several "OMG" areas, as does US550 between Durango and Ouray and the road between Yellowstone NP and Cody. But these roads are paved, which reduces (a little) the "heart in throat" factor.

Honorable mention for the "OMG" feeling goes to walking across the Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado. The fact that you can see through the bridge to the river 1000 feet below AND that the bridge moves is very unnerving.

So, what is your most harrowing drive?

Keith

We drove around the west side of Maui. I white knuckled it the whole way. Driving around the edge of 1500' cliffs with no guardrails and in the rain was not my idea of fun. My husband was having a great time for himself though. One lane hairpins and driving rains on a dirt road. Let me tell you I was bargaining with God that day. I bet I set the guiness record for holding my breath the longest. This was not the Hana drive, which, is a piece of cake compared to this drive. This was up through the mountains of west Maui. When I dared take looksee, from what I remember it was stuningly beautiful.

Oh Thanks Keith! We're doing the Beartooth Highway and taking the road out of Yellowstone into Cody in two weeks! Yikes!
My OMG was route 120 into Yosemite. It also was around a mountain with drop offs a thousand feet and no guard rails. Another OMG was Up Taylor Ave heading toward the Wharf in SF! Before you know it you're over the hill, in the middle of an intersection that was not visible and heading downnnnnnn!

I vote for Pikes Peak as the most harrowing drive I've been on. It was ok until we got above the timber line - after that, there was nothing to keep the car from rolling down the mountain if we should happen to fall off the road.

The most harrowing drive I've ever been on is anywhere on I-95 between Boston and Miami.

A close second is Atlanta. Yes, the entire city.

The freeways between Los Angeles Airport and Pasadena unnerve me. I live on a small island where even crazy drivers never go faster than 35 or 40 where the road is flat. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a woman reading a magazine while driving about 50 mph on the freeway. Give me back roads any day.

cd, don't sweat the Beartooth. Just take your time going around the curves and if traffic backs up behind you, pull over when you can so they can pass. Enjoy it, it's spectacular.

The day after Thanksgiving 1992 on PCH1 from Stinson Beach to Mill Valley in the thickest fog I have ever been in.
Steep cliffs and stormy ocean on the right and steep cliffs and ??? on the left. I think my top speed was 3 miles an hour!! I also recall that, after we got home, this might have been the evening my b.f. introduced me to Bushmills ! LOL
R5

driving from Boston to Rochester NY, many years ago. As we went thru the Berkshires we drove thru an electric storm I will never forget. To pull over seemed more dangerous than going on. Lightning hitting so close the car felt the strikes. It was so bad, I could not look in my rearview mirror as my eyes dialated with each strike. Had I been alone, I don't know how I would have drove on.It was the scariest most inspiring drive of my life....literally seeing lightning strike all around you and no where to go but forward....amazing.

ok, so I missed the original post's idea,.......driving the million dollar highway from Silverton to Ouray....coming up to a bend in the road and I said, "Honey; I think I just saw a landslide up ahead....just around the bend, sure enough, huge landslide, from the cliff, 3 ft deep to the edge about a foot. There was a van infront of us and a guy washing off at the falloff from the other way. Timing is everything, and if we waited, well we took the moment, and in our little Mustang convertable with no clearance whatsoever, siked the van in front of us to move on. We swwerved our way out of there, knowing how to drive in snow, believing life in a mudslide can't much differ. Well in our rearview mirror we saw a Ford 350 run into trouble....we kept driving and never looked back until we reached Ouray and let them know the highway was closed and tourist would soon be turning back. A true life time moment, when timing is everything!

The Amalfi Coast by far! There's only a 2 foot rail to keep you from plunging 300 feet into the ocean!
In the US the drive on Molokai to the waterfalls & the east side of the island, again no guard rails and one lane around very sharp turns from the shore line and up into the mountains.

My most harrowing drive-- a few days ago when my daughter got her learner's permit and I began sitting in the right passenger seat! My foot kept pressing down on the floor, as if there was a brake there!

I've got two: Just last week we accidently got on the "Oh my God Road" (it's actually named that) from Central City to Idaho Springs, Colorado at 10 p.m. in the pitch dark. Up a mountain, down again, on dirt roads, with just over a single lane, no railings, and no lights. I thought I was going to die, especially when we got to the official sign warning to travel at your own risk! I am so glad we did it in the dark so I couldn't see how far I was going to fall to my death. The second was the road from San Jose to Carmel, California, just after the major floods about five years ago. My husband thought nothing of driving the downslope lane despite the fact that the upslope lane had been washed away down the cliff.
When we got to the bottom, it was totally blocked by a landslide, and we had to turn around and come back up.
The road to Hana was nothing after that.

Any road is a scary road with my 17 year old daughter behind the wheel!

Agree with the above and 3 others come to mind--

the Kipur pass between Pakistan and Afghanistan (this was awhile back--it's probably even more scary now)

the road to Nerja from Marbella (though I'm going back in Nov., but taking anti-virtigo pills first--my husband's driving)

and the highway between Montana and Idaho where a deer ran into our car while we were going around 70mph

Some of the above postings just raised my blood pressure while I was reading them. Yikes! doesn't begin to cover it for some of you guys. Anyway, here are mine:

Blue Ridge Parkway in dense fog. It was my first time EVER to drive on a mountain (I'm from good old FLAT Florida). I was all alone and white knuckled it around every bend, not knowing which way it would turn next. I'd been a passenger many times before, but this was a first for me! I had this plan to go from motel to motel comparing prices to get the best rate, but when I saw the first sign for lodging, I took it, no questions asked. Had a drink with dinner to calm my nerves!

The other nerve-biting drive I had the pleasure to take was driving down a slick, rock and dirt one-lane mountain road with my girlfriend telling me how good a job I was doing! Never again do I want to do that drive!

White Water rafting on the Ocoee River was a piece of cake compared to these drives!

oops! I meant nail-biting or nerve-wracking (not nerve-biting...LOL)

Great topic...

I love driving through winding mountain roads. The wifes complexion turns a chalky white..I love it (she doesn't)lol.

On the other hand the Borman Expressway between Chicago thru Northern Indiana..reportedly the most trucks on any stretch of road in the US (trafic flows above 70mph when it isn't stopped). Honestly my kids counted trucks for only one mile of travel and there were something like 160 that went by us on the other side of the highway. That is my white knuckle area.

Driving over the mountains of Crete is a harrowing experience. The roads are narrow and winding with a cliff going up on one side and down on the other. No shoulders, no railings. There are little memorials (that look like church-shaped mainboxes) erected every few hundred feet where people have lost their lives going over the cliff.

When I took a 2.5-hour bus ride across Crete a couple years ago, I was amazed at how fast the driver went. These roads were CURVY, and my busmates and I were green with nausea. There were a ton of blind corners that he whizzed right around, taking the chance that no one would be coming in the other direction. Well guess what - someone DID come around the corner - another bus - and we happened to be on the outside of the turn - the cliffside. Our driver made the turn at the last possible second to avoid hitting the other bus - and he turned so sharply that we did a 180, then stopped short. By some pure stroke of luck we didn't go over the cliff. Then the driver just turned the bus around and kept going as if nothing had happened.

I'm not sure which was the worse, so it's a tossup:

Speeding downhill from Jerome AZ, in the Mingus Mts on a bicycle, rounding a curve & finding cattle-grates in the highway. No time to slow down to a "safe" speed to cross them and somehow crossing them without a crash.

Driving my bicycle up the canyon between Sedona & Flaggstaff --- all the switchbacks, rather narrow roads, and all kinds of motorcoach buses, RVs and camper trailers to share the road with.

or

a week later, and bicycling downhill from Las Vegas NM to Tucumcari (Rt 104?) -- I think the town was Trujillo, but on a white-knuckle downhill I found later on my speedometer/computer that I had a max speed of 56 mph. At the time I was too busy watching the road to be looking at the speedometer, so I'm glad it had a max function.

Traveling by bicycle is *so* much more exciting!

fivestar got it! The Hana highway, with a rental car with no power steering, was the most harrowing drive not caused simply by other drivers (for that,NYC Belt Parkway). The Hana Hwy was beautiful, with no warning of attractive pulloffs, and "white-knuckle" doesn't tell half the story. That's why the first stop at the end was for a "I Survived the Hana Highway" T-shirt!

How about Muholland Drive (sp?) in
Hollywood during rush hour!?!?!?!?
Pretty scary....

Amalfi Coast drive is very scary. You have no rails and the buses come very close to plunging from the cliffs into the ocean.

that's easy, driving anywhere on Nantucket Island in the middle of August: very scary!!

Visit to Stonehenge early January. Stayed in Bath and had to get back to London that night for an early a.m. business meeting. Had a rental car. Opposite side of car, opposite side of road. The fog. The fog. It came in so thick and heavy that we literally could not see other cars' headlights until they were almost past. 2 compadres fell asleep (probably a defense mechanism).

I white knuckled it all the way back on the M5.

The 20 mile logging road in the Western Sierras (CA) which leads up to Vermillion Valley Resort. One lane, steep, unpaved, winding, no guardrail, 10,000 feet passes. I prayed the entire way that we didn't meet a car coming toward us (luckily, we didn't). Vermillion Valley Resort is the most remote resort in the Sierras that you can still drive to.

I booked the stay at VVR from a website recommendation. My husband repeatedly said during our trek there, "You've got to be *****ing me."

Great place, though! You've never really seen the stars in the night sky until you've seen them from the Sierra heights.

sounds like a cool place to check out!

Oh...I meant to say the road from Marbella to Ronda, not Nerja. Nerja was easy, but need to figure out a less scary route to Ronda (or take antivertigo pills!)

Me in my youth in the backseat of the station wagon with my then-evil older brother. Any ride was harrowing in those days.

dem roads, pikes peak, hana, amalfi, yadayadayada, are nuthin to complain about. the most "harrowing" drive is always duh one to my mother-in-law's. i call it the "road to hell"!

>)

1) Icefield Parkway (Jasper NP) in a snowstorm in July! Both stunning and freaky.

2) Going To The Sun Road

3) PCH from Monterey to San Simeon one year, when trying to make a Hearst Castle tour in time. We didn't :(

4) Worst of all: I 95 during spring break!!!!!!

Drive up to Waimea Canyon in Kauai from Poipu with my sister. She was racing cars for a hobby with her husband and thought she was on the track. We were on the brink of being car sick, we didn't want to go past the first lookout, so missed the napili coastline.

The trip down was just as bad!! Did I mention the compact car??

Cannot tell you the road #'s, but many years ago we were in Colorado and decided to go from Cripple Creek to the Royal Gorge........well, I was navigating and said....."oh, here, let's take the scenic route"..NOT!!
I could not tell you one thing that was on that scenic route......because I literally reclined in the front seat..I would peep once in a while!!
I knew it was a seriously dangerous type of place when my DH (who loves driveing the hairpins and such) uttered.."Well, if that big a_ _ Lincoln can make it that is coming our way, surely to the dickens this big
a_ _ Cadillac can make it all the way thru this place.......just pray, baby!!"
It's no wonder they charge those big fees for rentals in Colorado!!
It was the scariest drive of my life...and I have been forever banned from reading the road map!!
He still lets me look at it.....but, takes a gander for himself these days!!

Costa Rica, from San Jose (airport) to La Fortuna (rainforest) and back... but it was SO worth it.

Best vacation EVER!!!

Any of the single track roads on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. Why? They are narrow with passing spots to let oncoming traffic pass. They are on sides of mountains and cliffs, with very sharp turns. It is often raining in this area of Scotland. And! you have to watch out for the sheep roaming about.

The mountain roads that take you from Port Antonio, Jamaica into Kingston. We were vacationing in Jamaica and took these roads because the coastal road was washed out. We were trying to get to the airport to catch our flight back to th U.S.

The funny part is that we weren't even doing the driving...we had a chauffer. The drop-off in the mountains were steep and the road very curve. The only way to go around a corner was to stop and honk your horn. At times the driver had to come to screeching halts because of oncoming traffic zooming around the bends.

Even my husband who is an aggressive driver was unnerved. I was nauseated and almost threw up.

Here are my most memorably scary:

1. Newly arrived in the US in 1971, and touring New Hampshire. We took the road to the observatory at the top of Mount Washington. In a BIG Mercury station wagon. With extra-wide mirrors because we were travelling with a camping trailer. Then we were in the clouds, and couldn't see 5 feet -- not sure if that was better or worse!

2. Driving from Cape Cod to the Mass Pike on 495, "storm alley", in such torrential rain and wind that it felt unsafe to go on because I just couldn't see where I was going, and unsafe to stop because no-one could see me, either, before they would whack into my trunk.

3. Driving I95 through Virginia in a heavy snowstorm (a "storm of the century" kind), on our way to Florida(!) for a February vacation. Just one lane, kind of plowed -- off ramps untouched. DH was driving, I was co-pilot, and also trying to reassure the kids who thought this was frightening yet fun. They still remember it.

4. Driving the Dorset lanes near my family's house: mostly single-lane, high stone walls and hedges, lots of blind curves. A trip without a car coming the other way is a good one.

Fun topic!

A few years ago my husband and I drove up to SanBernadino area in May from Palm Springs (so we were in shorts ... it was 90 there) to drive along "Top of the World" drive in the Big Bear area (that's what it was called in AAA book). It was cloudy when we got there and a little rainy, but decided to go for the drive up the mountain anyway .... BIG MISTAKE! We essentially ended up driving up into a cloud and it was so foggy that we couldn't even see the front of the car! All the while trying to maneuver one hairpin turn after another ... no good area to turn around and go back since we couldn't see a thing. If that wasn't bad enough, as we reached the higher elevation we started to notice snow still on some lawns and then the rain started to turn to snow with the appearance of signs to be careful about hazardous icy roads .... and we're still taking hairpin turns. I couldn't even bear to look out the windows I was so scared ... and I had to keep quiet so my husband who was driving could keep his wits. We finally managed to drive out of the area and prompty drove back to the desert (and had a great afternoon at Joshua Tree Nat'l Park) ... I really felt like a "dumb tourist" for doing that!

1. Montego Bay to Negril, Jamaica. My husband and I sat in the back of the small bus -- I've never been so glad to NOT be able to see everything that was happening. Let's just say I now know a very real version on the game "chicken".

2. Riding in the backseat of our Suburban with my Mom at the wheel going up Twist Run Road (self explanatory) at what seemed 70 miles an hour. I thought I was going to die at the young age of 8.

Mine are:

1) The Khyber Pass from Pakistan to Afghanistan, as one poster has already mentioned. Many, many years when I was young and no one knew where Afghanistan was, I took the "local" bus - the bus driver came by to collect the tickets, all the while carelessly twirling his handgun. In those days, when an Afghani boy became a man, he was given a gun. Every man had a gun. Every man, man-boy on that slow-movign bus had a gun/rifle of some sort. I didn't think I would get out of those dry mountains alive!

2) Another trip - up in the high Himalayas on an Indian bus. The inside of the bus is full, so we had to sit on TOP of the baggage ATOP the bus. We are on the outer perimeter of the mountain road. The driver routinely drove around the bend on two wheels with my friend and me hanging onto the loose baggage for life. Meanwhile, from the crazily angled bus that threatened tilt over completely and to drop off the cliff completely, we are getting glimpses of the sheer drop down the cliffs - 1000, 2000, 3000 foot drops!

Thank goodness I'm not that young any more! :)