Time for Camping?

The Conejo Grade has a 7% gradient for 5 miles with 12 curves.  U.S. Route 101, is a California state freeway/highway and is not part of the interstate system.  Generally, the CA freeways are built to interstate standards, but this road has some historical topographic issues that make reducing the grade to 6% impractical from a cost point of view.  It would require realignment and rerouting of the highway at a prohibitive cost.

Originally posted by offgrid Steep highways are by no means limited to the west half of the country. I-64 in WV east of Beckley has about a 7 mile grade posted at 7%. The two lane us highway system in wv has many grades at 8-9%.

When people start talking about steep grades, one of the first ones that comes to mind is "Old Priest Grade". It's considered "brutally steep" at 20% grade. When we go to Yosemite, we sometimes take that route on the way up, but we won't come down it trailer or not.

The only thing about the manual or sport modes in the auitomatics is that they won't allow a downshift that over revs the engine. So you better get it in the gear you want before your brakes fail, otherwise you're dead. With manual trannys you can jam it in there if you have to, I had to do that once with an old CalFire water truck when its brakes failed on a Graham Hill Rd (a brake line blew out) in Felton CA. I limped back to the park maintenance yard, the engine was toast but I was alive so its all good. I wasn't interested in ever getting back in that old '38 Dodge anyway.  

You can't alway get what you want.