Driving from Sacramento to Denver with U-haul advice please (Fort Collins: rental, dangerous)

[Calforlifebut]

20 foot uhaul trailer with car dolly , 80 seems best route for an April run . Any advice would be awesome

[NW Crow]

Check the various towing capacities vs loads against each other (gross weights, weight at tongue). Test and practice driving with the long train. Have adequate brakes and baby them.

Stick to interstate, avoid big city rush hours (including SLC) by pre-timing your arrival and adjusting as necessary, heed the lower recommended speed limit. Have good mirror views and always check. Be cautious and defensive at all times especially at mergers / exits. Be patient and super precise at gas stations and anywhere else you stop. Worry about what the other person might do and avoid them having to think much because they might not. Plan your moves and be prepared / able to back off if in any doubt.

Lock everything. Multiples times with the biggest locks you can (not sure how big bolt cutters can handle but make it tougher). Take valuables into motel. Keep eyes / ears open all night anyways as some people specialized in ripping off trailers. Document the contents by video and / or paper copy. Consider other potential more secure means of transport for things that are especially valuable or sentimental. Load stuff in a way to minimize shifting / potential damage. Hide valuable stuff in back or unexpected places.

Take heed of any bad weather FORECASTS (slow or stop) to include wind warnings. Don't turn far / fast. I wouldn't pass a gas station was less than half a tank. Open gas stations after 10 pm can be hard to find in some areas.

Don't drive tired or distracted.

[reed303]

Originally Posted by Calforlifebut

20 foot uhaul trailer with car dolly , 80 seems best route for an April run . Any advice would be awesome

20' Trailer, really ? Maybe you meant truck ?

Yes I-80 should be OK in April. Most truckers use US 287 west of Cheyenne as a short cut to I-25 into Denver.

[bluescreen73]

Originally Posted by reed303

20' Trailer, really ? Maybe you meant truck ?

Yes I-80 should be OK in April. Most truckers use US 287 west of Cheyenne as a short cut to I-25 into Denver.

OP should just stay on I-80 to Cheyenne and take I-25 to Denver. The top speed with a car dolly is 55mph. 287 is 2-lanes and 65mph for a vast majority of the trip between Laramie and Fort Collins. Going 10mph under the speed limit with limited passing will tick a lot of people off. 287 is dangerous enough without adding that to the mix.

[Dogmama50]

Don't underestimate the wind in Wyoming and watch the weather carefully, better to stay put for a day than drive in bad conditions.

[NW Crow]

I wrote about trailer, though it must be truck. Easier to rip off trailer. But the right thief can hotwire a truck.

[pikabike]

The OP must have mean 20’ truck pulling a car dolly. I drove such a truck for one of our moving runs, between WA and CO, though without the car dolly. Just put a padlock on the truck’s rear door. U-Haul sells such locks right in the rental shops.

I-80 would be better for a snow-season run than I-70, but do keep daily watch on weather forecasts anyway. I-80 is justifiably known for very high winds, which can cause whiteouts even with no snow falling. The same wind can also make trailering or driving high-profile vehicles such as moving trucks difficult.

One tip: Watch what professional truck drivers do in high wind. If they seem to be slowing down and traveling only in the farthest right lane with flashers on, consider doing the same. On our run from western WA to CO, there was little wind UNTIL we got east of Auburn. When I began the long climb on I-90, some sudden hard gusts made it hard to keep normal speed and stay straight in the lane. Just before that, one trucker had switched to the slowest lane, slowed down, and put his flashers on. He had probably heard a warning on radio from another trucker who’d already driven the same stretch. I followed him.

Our trip passed through a high-wind zone and three or four snowstorms. By paying very careful and frequent attention to weather forecasts and conditions, we managed to time our passages before critical points. For example, if we had been just 30 to 60 minutes later on a couple of high passes, we would have had ice to deal with instead of falling snow. And DRIVE SLOWLY when conditions call for it.