Best driving route Phoenix to Portland? (Pendleton, Troutdale: home, construction, college)

[PhxNative09]

Driving a 22' truck next week from Phoenix to Portland. What's the recommended route? I know the obvious over to LA and I-5 up, but I was thinking of maybe going up through Salt Lake City, tucking into Idaho and coming west from there.

I don't have time for stops and I'm trying to avoid traffic, but it would be nice to see some different scenery. Can anyone think of imaginative ways to:

1) keep the drive time between 20-25 hours
2) not have any problems with a large heavy truck on the route (no bad roads!)
3) avoid particularly bad traffic areas
4) see something nice from the road

Thanks very much for your help!

[Rob Allen]

The tricky part of the Utah-Idaho route for you will be getting around the Grand Canyon and onto I-15 north toward SLC. Once you're on I-15, it's interstates all the way, so the roads will be good. But getting to I-15 may involve some smaller highways like US89 or US93, or going halfway across California and then cutting back to the northeast. I don't know what US89 or US93 are like.

The I-5 route really isn't bad, and it does have interesting and varied scenery as you go from the Mojave Desert to the Central Valley to Mt. Shasta and the Siskiyou range to the Willamette Valley. I've never driven the Utah-Idaho route so I don't know how it compares.

[mamh]

We drove the the utah-idaho route a few years ago from tucson, the salt lake city and las vegas are your biggest hang ups in a an odd sorta of way its the most direct to Portland..Go up to 40 and catch 395 up to vegas and the 15 straight north till you hit 84 north of slc..
I-5 is boring but easy...I think your going to need more than 25 hours...
good luck and safe driving.

[PHXtoPDX]

I just did this back in July. I picked it because I mostly wanted to avoid LA. Here's the route I took:

I-10 to Blythe, CA, head North on US-95
US-95 to Needles, CA, head West on I-40
I-40 to Barstow, CA, head South for about 4 miles on I-15 until you hit CA-58
CA-58 to Bakersfield, CA, head North on CA-99
CA-99 to Sacramento, CA
switch over to I-5 in Sacramento and follow it all the way into Portland.

The hardest part might be the US-95/I-40 segment. US-95 has a lot of hilly sections, and there aren't very many gas stations between Blythe and Barstow. I'm also told CA-99 has better traffic than I-5. I've never driven that section of I-5 to compare, but I can say that CA-99 wasn't bad at all.

Took me around 21-22 hours of actual driving.

Hope that helps!

Added:
Was thinking about it some more, and you might want to start off taking either I-17 North to Flagstaff to I-40, or US-60 to US-93 to I-40 across to Barstow, CA. It's a bit more roundabout, but I think it'll be easier to drive in a truck than US-95.

[dandickinson]

I usually just head into LA on the 10 and than take the 99 (Trucker freeway) all the way up. It will merge with the 5 a few times and sometimes will be better to take the 5 in nor Cal due to the 99 taking side trips. almost the whole way through Cal all you see are truck stops. (there are alot of semi's on the road so watch out.

That is the common route for the truckers that drive the x-mas trees from OR to AZ

you might want to find a way around LA and time it right in the winter because the passes in nor Cal could get closed off form the snow.

[The Cactus Leaguer]

I have taken all three routes (LA, LV, SLC). I enjoyed going through Idaho and SLC the most as far as the scenery goes but if you are in any kind of hurry, go through (around) LA. You will be kicking yourself through all of Southern Utah and Northern Arizona as you blow through countless opportunities to turn off and see a lot of amazing scenery (most of which you can't see from the highway). Also the roads are narrow and winding going around the Grand Canyon.

Drive safe.

[davefr]

Originally Posted by PHXtoPDX

I just did this back in July. I picked it because I mostly wanted to avoid LA. Here's the route I took:

I-10 to Blythe, CA, head North on US-95
US-95 to Needles, CA, head West on I-40
I-40 to Barstow, CA, head South for about 4 miles on I-15 until you hit CA-58
CA-58 to Bakersfield, CA, head North on CA-99
CA-99 to Sacramento, CA
switch over to I-5 in Sacramento and follow it all the way into Portland.

I agree with the above and LA should definately be avoided during the day. However I'd cut over to I-5 at Bakersfield.

[PhxNative09]

Thanks for all your comments.

I ended up going up the 93 to Kingman & Vegas - had to take a detour on the 68/95(?) since trucks can't cross Hoover dam - and then heading up through Vegas to SLC to Boise and through Oregon on the 84. I think since I did a lot of the driving at night I missed some good scenery, but I did get to see Beaver (south of SLC) through Mountain Home ID in the daytime, and that was nice. Drive time was 12 hours Monday and about 18 hours Tuesday.

There's construction everywhere, but the worst freeway section was in Boise. It didn't last long, though. The truck didn't like the uphills around the AZ/NV border but seemed to do fine with the grades coming through OR.

Question for anyone that's been through UT/ID in the spring/summer - is all that grassland ever completely green?

[tablemtn]

It's generally a very arid area. If you drive back, you might consider going through Burns, Oregon, then turning south through central Nevada. It's a very lonely, remote drive - but there is VERY little traffic, and the roads are generally well-maintained and little-used.

[pathrunner]

I wish I had taken that route, tablemtn, when driving from PDX to PHX last month. Because it was summer, and I had a 26-foot Penske towing a car, I decided not to chance it. Turns out the Penske truck was amazing (they gave me a truck with only 39K on it, and it was a dream).

Note to anyone driving from Pendleton to Ontario, Oregon at night: DON'T do that right now. Tons of construction. It was absolutely harrowing, long slow downgrade with curves and narrow lanes due to construction. No light whatsoever except for headlights. Traffic backs up. A stop in Ontario is necessary because we were advised that cows get on the highway between Ontario and Boise and if it's at night you can't see them. We didn't chance that.

The route was I-80 to I-15, then 95 south to Blythe, and the I-10 over to PHX: Troutdale to Ontario, Ontario to Boise, Boise to Fillmore UT, Fillmore to Las Vegas. Due to unforeseen circumstances (my ridiculous former bank and its antiquated computer system) we had to go south to Blythe, then across to PHX.

We had planned to go Las Vegas to Kingman, Wickenburg to PHX (Hwy 93), and I wish we'd been able to do that.

Had we not been driving a 26-foot truck we would have gone from St. George over to Flag and down to PHX but thanks to this forum we knew to avoid that route with a huge truck and a towed car.

When I drive to PDX within the next year I'll be taking the route PHXtoPDX described, but cut over to I-5 at Bakersfield like Dave said. 99 is old and has lots of seams and potholes. At least it did the last time I drove it, and there is no reason to assume that has changed. That road's been bad since I was in college in NorCal in the 70's and I-5 didn't exist.

BTW, the roads here in Phoenix are a dream compared to Oregon and California. Sometimes on the freeway I think I'm floating it's that good.