How do they measure a grade?

[Bushman]

When you are driving along, the highway sign says 10 or 15% grade. I think that people would understand degrees better. What's a grade and how does it relate to degrees of a slope?

[Rock Chuck]

A grade is just a road that goes up or down. The percent grade is rise/run * 100. If a road climbs 20' in a 1000' run, thats 20/1000 * 100 = 2%.

If you want to have some fun with it, go to wikipedia and search for 'road slope percent'. You'll spend all night playing with their trigonometry formulas.

[Hi Ball]

Well, I am not sure but I do know through having to go up and down a 10% grade with a motor home and boat behind, this is not fun on a winding road.:eek: :(

[Bushman]

That is precisely why I'm not pulling a trailer into NW Montana next week. I saw 15% grades in Canada this year, but anticipate way more than that in the Rockies. New rotors and discs all around in anticipation. At least there won't be snow and ice. REAL EXCITING is driving those snow covered grades with a loaded truck with five horses in the trailer out elk hunting.

[Rock Chuck]

On a highway, 6 to 7% is getting pretty steep, enough that you'd better use the gears. Coming down a 10% you'd better use a LOT of gears.

[Bushman]

On those steep ones into Canada they say for trucks to use low range. I never drove a big rig out on the road so I don't know what that means exactly. Thanks for the earlier explanation. Trigonometry you say, heck I was in trouble in math class if I couldn't see my fingers.:D

[Rock Chuck]

In the past, the rule for truckers was to use the same gear going down as it would take to go up it. Now, however, trucks are more powerful now than then. One will go up a hill several gears higher than the old trucks. If you come down geared that high, you're in for a ride.

[ncboman]

I know if you're traveling south on I-77 in West Va at night, you better have both eyes open and both hands on the wheel. :eek:

Let them truckers roll.

10-4

:D

[Hi Ball]

Rock Chuck, I once threw the anchor out off the back of the boat and dragged the wife and kids behind just so's I could keep the rig on the road. Now as it was I managed to heat up those brakes like like Bar-B-Q on a grill.

I will never pull anything up or down a 10% grade again, not in this lifetime you betcha!!!:eek::eek:;)

[Bushman]

Well, after 3,857 miles out west, the highest grade that I saw was 7% which was a surprise as I saw those 10% and a 15% grade up in Canada. The difference is that those grades out west go for miles and that is when it gets exciting.

As a side note, if you see a sign in Wyoming that says that there are some steep hills up ahead, don't go there. "Highway" 14 Alt. between Lovell and Dayton through the Bighorn National Forest was a nightmare. My Buick is not a bighorn and those were not hills. Plus 9,000 feet ate my 205 horsepower down to almost nothing. There was snow up there still and road construction. It went from 87 degrees down in the valley to 65 up that high and I thought I'd blown a temperature sensor. I'm never going that way again.

[Hi Ball]

I will no longer take a motorhome up into Canada for a couple of reasons and those frigging grades are one of them. No thank you!!! Now talk about giving a person "white knuckle" man some of those grades will make you age 10 years, especially if your pulling a trailer. :(:eek: :eek:

[Hi Ball]

Bushman, my wife reminded me of us going that route back in the mid-80's with the kids in that Holiday Rambler motorhome. Holy Cow Bells!!! It is a good thing I was a lot younger then and my heart could bare the stress. :(

I had the kids up top viewing the sights and could hear the chit chat from the bunch of little crumbsnatchers, there laughing and gigling but I on the other hand was a nervous wreck by the time we pulled over for lunch. :eek:

Now if you want to really try your luck, YOU just get on that "GOING TO THE SUN ROAD" up at Glacier National Park. I had a young lady conservation person wave me onto that road, while I was trying to figure out if we wanted to take this motorhome on the road in the first place. This had to be the most heart pounding experience of my life driving a motorhome.

I swear that other cars passing us in the opposite direction came only withing inches of scraping off the paint along side our rig. The ride is beautiful if your not driving but other wise make sure you have a strong heart.;) :eek::eek:

PS....My wife bought me the video of the trip because I NEVER got chance to see all the various mountains, to dog gone busy watching the road in front of me and those 1,500 ft drop offs below the narrow road.

[Bushman]

Hi Ball, we did the Going To The Sun Road last Sunday as sis lives just 20 miles from the "Park" as they call it out there. I think my kid envisioned slides and swing sets when we talked about the "Park". I always thought that they called it the Going To The Sun Highway, but I darn sure know why it is called a Road now. Being used to 500 feet above sea level, I was breaking a sweat just passengering on the park bus and being a passenger isn't that much work. That is the only way I would do that road. The "Reds" as the red tour busses are called, charge extra and tell you more about what you are seeing. The regular busses are free once you get into the Park and sis had yearly pass so we got in for free. Even our tour buss driver told me that he wants to go up on that road with a hammer and chisel and widen out that road in a few places. There are signs all over that if your rig is over 21' long, you will never fit or make the turns. Breathtaking to be sure.

Then there is a new ride called the Zip Line on Big Mountain north of Whitefish. $59.00 for a walking and zipping tour that takes two hours. They hang you off a set of pulleys and you zip at 50 mph up to 100' above the ground for four zips. I told them that they should have a mini zip for people to try. What would happen if you got up there and didn't like being zipped? They were booked up (thankfully) as the kid thought it was a better idea than I did. It looked like a coronary event in the making for this particular flatlander. We did the chair lift to the top and the bob sled run back down instead.

[Rock Chuck]

I haven't been over that road in years. At that time, camp trailer weren't allowed. They had to go around, which was a LONG way, out of the park. I heard that they did some work on it a while back but I doubt its like I-84. It would have been a white knuckle trip for anyone who wasn't used to the high country, for sure. Years ago, my brother spend a summer working in Kalispel. He and a co-worker took a drive over it. The other guy was from the east and had never seen a hill that he couldn't see over if he stood on his tip toes. My brother said the poor guy missed it all because he wouldn't come out from under the dashboard.

[Hi Ball]

Bushman just so you know, my Holiday Rambler motorhome was a class C back then and it was 27ft, 8 inches long. We got waved onto the road by some "rookie" park agent, so I went with the flow.:eek::eek:

Now you know why I had "white knuckle" and had to rest up after we reached the end of that winding road. I still to this day don't know how one of those red tour buses and passed each other in opposite directions. I bet you would not have been able to pass a mouse between the sides of us. :)

[DancesWithKnives]

You guys need to take the road to Bella Coola over Heckman Pass in BC. When I drove it, it was dirt, single lane in spots, huge drop offs, with semi trucks driving over it----and an 18% grade! Now that's a slope.

DWK