So here's the rub

If there isn't a pool going for what day I'll likely die on this stupid, ill advised trip, there really should be. To help the bookies, here's the part of the trip that I'm thinking is going to be where I have to take regular sitting down and crying breaks.


It doesn't look that bad, right? A nice, relatively straight shot. It looks fairly uphill, but that's merely an optical illusion produced by the Mercator projection style of map, and the fact that "North" and "Up" have the same symbol. But, when one looks closelyer...





Now we leave the familiar yellow background and red lines of the political map and venture into the dark, frightening realm of the topographic map. Those dark green areas mean trouble. Let's look even more closleyer.



That brave little blue line has elected to cross straight through the Rockies. I mean just a straight, who gives a crap shot straight into the heart of that evil, wretched geographical feature. I've crunched number and played around with route all I can, but there's just not very many roads in that area, and there doesn't seem to be any way to avoid this route that doesn't add another 500-1000 miles to the route. Want to see how bad it gets? Let's look even MORE closeleyer! (Is this esoteric, obscure South Park joke doing it for anyone else? No? No one? FINE.)




Do you see that? That's called a "switchback". It exists because if you simply had the road continue straight, the elevation change is so steep you'd be driving at damn near a 45 degree angle upwards. It's ridiculous and there's no reason for it. The Rocky Mountains have no reason for existing there I said it.