Feel free to tell me to look at a map

October 5, 2016 3:06 PM

Asking for fiction: looking to recreate a Donner party situation in the 21st century after the collapse of society for reasons. Group is on the road trying to get across the Rockies from the East Coast to Portland, Oregon for reasons. There aren't motor vehicles for reasons. The roads are still there, though. So are the tunnels? I guess there are tunnels? What paths would a group of dystopia travelers take over the Rockies? Where might they run into trouble when the winter comes in?

I'm not looking for a specific replication of the Donner party tragedy, with all of its various sadnesses; I'm just using it as shorthand for *getting stuck in the Rockies during the winter w/o supplies* here.

This info is for a scene within a scene, and I'm not going into much detail. I just need maybe some highway names that traverse some routes that would get dangerous when winter sets in. I've been in the Rockies a little, but never crossed them from East/West w.o flying over them. Hence my great ignorance.

THANK YOU

posted by angrycat to Travel & Transportation around Washington (14 answers total)

The most well-known and touristy way to cross the Rockies is Trail Ridge Road. Its closed with snow for a lot of the year and also can have surprise snowstorms even in the middle of summer. There is tourist infrastructure there (the visitor center) that could give your group a place to shelter if they got caught in a freak snowstorm. If they were traveling late in the year for some reason, they'd have to make the decision to press on or shelter in place knowing that would mean ten feet or more of snow until spring. There are animals like elk and marmots up at that elevation, but I don't know enough about them to know what their winter habits are.
posted by MsMolly at 3:26 PM on October 5, 2016

Plugging my old Brooklyn address into Google Maps, it suggests taking I-80 across southern Wyoming and then getting I-84 north out of Salt Lake City. That probably wouldn't be a good route even by car in the winter, not to mention whether your characters would have elevation maps or other information that suggested they should re-route through an easier pass. (For more detailed road names and landscape specifics, zeroing on on traffic and geographic info around southern Wyoming, the SLC area, and Idaho will probably give you what you want.)

However, in a hypothetical post-apocalyptic situation without motor vehicles or climate control, I'd probably opt for a more southerly route if at all possible, even considering getting down to I-10 somehow and then traveling north along the California coast. (This would have me crossing the Rockies in Texas and the desert Southwest.) Especially if I was departing from points south in the first place. Yes, obviously, this would be an incredibly circuitous route assuming all mod cons, but I'd go the long way rather than face snowy mountain passes if at all possible.

Then again, this was basically the choice faced by the Donner Party, and they chose the quicker more hazardous route, didn't they?
posted by Sara C. at 3:41 PM on October 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

Check out the Lewis & Clark Trail, which traveled through what's now Montana, and they found passes in the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana/Idaho with the help of natives and the occasional French trapper. Their ultimate destination was Astoria Oregon, the mouth of the Columbia River and about 95 miles past Portland along the same river.

Lewis and Clark met their share of starving natives, and even fed a number of them because they could hunt better with superior firepower, but I believe that was more in the Montana plains.
posted by Sunburnt at 3:42 PM on October 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

If they happened to go through Denver on their way west, then they would likely go through the Eisenhower Tunnel. It's pretty long and definitely could be scene for something creepy or perhaps a madmaxian warlord guards it now. It would be very dark, so your travelers would need a light source or have their hand on the wall for 2 miles in the pitch dark...
posted by TomFoolery at 3:56 PM on October 5, 2016 [6 favorites]

Just for fun facts, the Eisenhower Tunnel allows Rocky Mountain travellers to avoid the frequently closed Loveland Pass, which is the highest mountain pass in the world that tries to stay open in winter. The Pass is quite near the tunnel, located directly on the Continental Divide. The closure of the Pass inspired Stephen King to write The Shining.
posted by xyzzy at 4:09 PM on October 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Dinner Party didn't get stuck in the Rockies, just an fyi. They made it past that and got stuck in the Sierras, which while lower in elevation used to get tremendous snowfalls many winters. And wet heavy snow. Totally impassable.
posted by fshgrl at 5:29 PM on October 5, 2016 [4 favorites]

I just read this book about a modern day trip over the Oregon Trail using mules and covered wagon. Lots of detail about what is really like on the trail today.
posted by metahawk at 6:06 PM on October 5, 2016

However, in a hypothetical post-apocalyptic situation without motor vehicles or climate control, I'd probably opt for a more southerly route if at all possible, even considering getting down to I-10 somehow and then traveling north along the California coast. (This would have me crossing the Rockies in Texas and the desert Southwest.) ... Then again, this was basically the choice faced by the Donner Party, and they chose the quicker more hazardous route, didn't they?

The amount of water a post-apocalyptic Donner Party would need to carry to make it successfully through the desert Southwest would make this route unfeasible. High terrain where your livestock can forage might get cold, but you'll probably live (so long as you don't travel in the winter and you don't have particularly bad luck.) Lack of water, on the other hand, will kill you.
posted by Johnny Assay at 8:04 PM on October 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Dinner Party didn't get stuck in the Rockies, just an fyi. They made it past that and got stuck in the Sierras, which while lower in elevation used to get tremendous snowfalls many winters. And wet heavy snow. Totally impassable.

I don't know if that was intentional, but calling it the "Dinner Party" cracked me up.

That there is more than one mountain range to cross on the way west seems to get missed in a lot of winter travel questions, interestingly . Depending on where in the east the people are starting from, the specific route will vary, but at a minimum you will have the Rockies, the Blue Mountains, and the Cascades, with other mountain ranges if you adjust your route north or south. All of those are high enough to have dangerous winter conditions, so you have the option of picking the location for your travelers to have their Donner moment on their way west.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:19 PM on October 5, 2016

Last winter I drove Loveland Pass in the dark when it was snowing increasingly hard but only a couple of inches had accumulated*, so I can vouch that Creepy Eisenhower Tunnel would definitely be the way to go, and the need to redirect to said tunnel despite its spooky post apocalyptic reputation could easily sweep in without warning during a spell of otherwise fine weather.


*Google Maps said it was 3 minutes faster to get home from skiing! Lies, lies, treacherous snowy lies!
posted by deludingmyself at 8:20 PM on October 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Yay for Creepy Eisenhower Tunnel! Thanks everybody!
posted by angrycat at 10:07 PM on October 5, 2016

Depending on the route or origins of how they are getting through Colorado, some passes and routes. Slumgullion Pass if they are starting from New Mexico going Northwest. Berthoud pass, if they already crossed I70 past the town of Empire, if they can't make Eisenhower and need to go further North through Winter Park to Rabbit Ears Pass near Steamboat. Kenosha Pass and 285 if they want miles South of I70. Raton pass would be the furthest south going North on the front range along 25 all the way to Wyoming.
posted by brent at 6:58 AM on October 6, 2016

I've driven that Ridge Road through Rocky Mtn. Nat'l. Park. At one point, you are 2 miles elev. Much of it is well above tree line. There are a number of steep dropoffs, where I was alomosr surprised not to see a pile of mangled vehicles below.

I-70 through the Rockies gives me respect for the engineers and workers who made it happen.

There's a lot of National Parks through Utah that offer post-apocalyptic scenes because so much of that landscape is archetypal, e.g., Arches Nat'l. Park.
posted by theora55 at 9:32 AM on October 6, 2016

If I remember right, Stephen King also used the Eisenhower Tunnel in The Stand. As well, he had two people trapped for weeks in the middle of winter in the Rockies (in an old lodge or cabin...sorry, it's been a few years since I read it).
posted by lhauser at 1:27 PM on October 7, 2016