LONG STORY SHORT By Kristine McGowan Steve has towed a lot in his young life. Despite being a 2022 F-150, he’s already towed our trailer more than 1,500 miles, including our journey down the Oregon coast and through California earlier this year before we hit the road full-time. In all our towing, Steve has never struggled. We’ve never had a problem towing over mountains, along interstates, and through triple-digit heat. Steve is only a half-ton truck, but he’s always seemed more than capable of doing the job. Then we came to Sonora Pass. For those who aren’t familiar—as we weren’t until we drove up to it—Sonora Pass is another name for a section of Highway 108. It meanders over the Sierra Nevada mountains north of Tioga Pass, the famous road that cuts through Yosemite. We came to Sonora Pass from the Bay Area, as we were making our way to Mammoth Lakes. Typically, we don’t notice the moment a highway turns into a mountain pass. Sure, the scenery and elevation change, but we can’t always pinpoint the exact spot where the transition happens. Sonora Pass, however, called it out with a big yellow sign: SONORA PASS AHEAD STEEP & WINDING GRADE TRAVEL TRAILERS NOT ADVISED Jason and I had the same reaction: Wait, what? By and large, we use Apple Maps and Google Maps for navigation, neither of which takes towing into account.* So this sign was a surprise to us. We pulled over immediately, into the last turnaround available before the pass. Two other vehicles, a Class-C RV and a truck pulling a fifth-wheel, were parked in the turnaround. They were facing in the direction opposite from which we’d come. Maybe they’d driven over the pass, we thought. So Jason walked over and asked how it was. The driver of the Class-C RV told us it was fine. There weren’t any concerningly tight turns; he’d just pulled over because his brakes were “giving him trouble.” The driver of the truck and fifth-wheel wasn’t around, so we didn’t get a chance to talk to them. But we felt a little reassured by the RV driver. So Jason hopped back into Steve, and we steered ourselves toward the pass. About 10 minutes later, we realized we never should have been concerned about the turns. The real bitch in this situation was the grade. Pretty quickly, Sonora Pass kicks off with a 20% grade.** And it keeps going and going and going. Steve had never towed at such an incline, and certainly not for so long. Add in the 95° heat, and we realized we could be digging ourselves into some deep shit. We went slow—mostly because we had no choice. We couldn’t turn around, and our speed dipped as low as 12 miles per hour at one point. Our eyes stayed glued to the temperature gauges on Steve’s dashboard, which seemed to be climbing at the same pace that we were. My heart leaped into my throat at times. I don’t do well in vehicles on unlevel terrain. When we’re parking our truck on the side of a road, I have a habit of screeching, “Oh my God, we’re gonna roll” as soon as one side of the truck lifts higher than the other. Jason usually has to tell me to get out so he can finish parking. Despite our stress, Sonora Pass was one of the most beautiful drives we've done. All that said, we weren’t the only ones struggling on Sonora Pass that day. Nearly everyone else was too, towing or not. (We were not the only ones towing a trailer, despite the big yellow sign.) After we got through the worst of the climb, we pulled over and parked on relatively level ground to give Steve a chance to cool down (and my heartrate a chance to slow down). His temperature gauges hadn’t stretched into the red yet, but we weren’t comfortable with pressing on regardless. We popped the hood and, when it seemed safe to do so, we put on work gloves and slowly--slowly—unscrewed the coolant reservoir’s cap to relieve the heat and pressure that had built up inside. Not long after that, a minivan pulled over behind us. The driver got out and asked if we were OK, and after we said yes and asked if he was OK, he told us his rental car wasn’t handling the climb well either. It needed a chance to cool down, too. Clearly, despite our crawling pace, we weren’t holding anyone up. We all stood around for about 20 minutes, relaxing into the ease of small conversation and reassuring each other that the worst was over. The minivan driver was from Perth, Australia, and he was heading to Tahoe, where his daughter—waiting in the van—would compete in the Tahoe 200 Endurance Run. We told him about our favorite pancake place in Tahoe (Heidi’s Pancake House), and all three of us ragged about how awful LAX is. He probably doesn’t realize it, but this Aussie from Perth helped us enormously that day. Our short conversation had a sense of camaraderie weaved through it—something that said, “Yeah, we probably shouldn’t be here, we all made dumb decisions today, but we’re out here now, so we’ll help each other out and make the best of it.” When the Aussie decided to move on, he left us with a cheery, “Hope we all make it!” By that point, I was certain we would. We could do this. Steve could do this. We did make it. We got to Mammoth safely. Once again, Steve proved himself capable.*** And Aussie, if you’re reading this—we hope you had some good pancakes in Tahoe. * We have since looked into navigation software designed for towing and RV drivers. We’re looking at RV Trip Wizard, but we’re not sure it’s right for us. If you have a recommendation, let us know in a comment below. ** We would later learn that Sonora Pass is the steepest highway in California, with a 26% grade at one point. Yikes. *** That said, we do not plan on testing him like this ever again.
1 Comment
Zanymouse
7/26/2023 09:54:44 pm
Yiiiiikes!! I'm glad Steve persevered, and you made it through the pass safely. Pancakes for everyone!
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