California to Ohio in 26ft Uhaul with car transport (Columbus: rental, home)

[WhiteLightn]

Hi- Traveling from Los Angeles to Columbus,Ohio in 26ft. Uhaul with car dolly. Thinking about taking 70. Concerned about mountains. How steep is the climb? Can I make it comfortably through rockies, or should I shoot 15n to 80 and head east. I hear that is milder climbs. Don't want to take 40. I have done that twice. Thanks for the help.

Chasin the dream.

[ohazco]

This is probably a better question for the general forum, or the Colorado forum or something, but nonetheless... I know you said you don't want to take it, but the most direct/fastest route is just staying on I-40 to I-44 to I-70 straight to Columbus. Taking I-80 will leave you 2.5 hours north of Columbus and you will have to cut back down, not to mention going through Chicago (though I guess maybe not an issue when from LA). As far as mountains... I-40/44 only has to climb in and out of Flagstaff, AZ. I-70 definitely has mountainous terrain, 6% grades which is tough in a weighted down uhaul, if you don't know how to drive on grades, downshifting and on-off braking, you will burn out your brakes and, well you know what. But it really is a beautiful drive if you are up for it and never done it. I-80, I'm not sure I've never taken it west of the plains, but it has to cross the Rockies too, plus it seems crazy to back-track that much getting 6 miles/gallon in a uhaul. Personally, I would suck it up and take I-40 again, save the scenic route for when you aren't driving the biggest/heaviest vehicle you've probably ever driven. Heres a thread describing I-80 a bit, do a search I'm sure you will find your answer.
http://www.city-data.com/forum/wyomi...ng-i-80-a.html

[98PanAm]

I grew up in C-bus but lived in SoCal for several years, among several other places in the US. Over the past thirty-two years, I have made the trip between Ohio and SoCal countless times by car, motorcycle, motor home pulling a car, Amtrak train, and coincidentally, when we moved back to Ohio from the L.A. area in the winter of 1984, a probably overloaded 26-foot rental truck pulling a loaded car, with our five year old son and our very skittish cat riding along with me (my wife flew ahead from LAX to CMH with our baby and three year old).

If you want the least hilly route, no contest, I-40 is it until after you get east of Albuquerque, then you can go any way you want. I knew that ahead of time, so when making the '84 trip back east with the moving van, it wasn't even a question, I-40 was it. In fact, the most challenging grades that stick out in my mind from that whole trip were the long, steep climb up the Cajon Pass in SoCal, and the downgrade on 71/75 in NoKY coming into Cincy (twisty, steep, narrow, trafficky, and idiot-clogged).

The next least hilly/curvy route of the three is 1-15 to Salt Lake City, then I-80 east, but that way has some pretty intense grades between SLC and mid-Wyoming, and it takes you farther north than you need to go to get to CMH (although I did it a few times by car just to break the monotony of repeatedly making the CMH/SoCal trip).

The Rockies portion of I-70 is definitely the most challenging of the three (and the most scenic), from eastern Utah all the way to Denver. It features steep up and down grades, curves, and higher altitude (11,000 ft +) than the other two routes in question, although it's much better since they finished I-70 less than 20 years ago.

When I used to make that trip regular in the '80s, I-70 wasn't connected in the mid-Rockies, so everything funneled down into a twisty two-lane through the tightest, most rugged areas like Glenwood Canyon. I-70 wasn't originally going to be built west of Denver at all due to the major engineering challenges of putting an interstate highway through the Rockies between Denver and Grand Junction, and through the spectacular Spotted Wolf Canyon in eastern Utah. It wasn't fully completed until the '90s, and was one of the last major portions of the interstate highway system to be linked up. It's really a very interesting story from engineering and geology standpoints, but to your original question, it's doable, but it would be the most challenging route of the three in a loaded moving van.

Interstate 70 in Colorado - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Interstate 70 in Utah - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia