Bob Whitmire wrote:
>But, as long as we're talking about roads . . <g> . . the road from Asmara,
>capital of Eritrea, to Massawa, on the Red Sea, is 125 kilometers long and
>drops 8,000 feet in about 55 of them.
>
>
Well, I've been on what has to be one of the worst roads in the world.
It goes through virgin mountain rain forest to the Rara Avis research,
and now mostly tourist, camp. One rides in an unsprung, iron trailer
pulled by a four wheel drive tractor. Even so, the tractor has to
sometimes back down and try a slightly different line. They maintain the
"road" by dropping large quantities of cut wood from fallen trees onto
it, but the jungle swallows it up as fast as it is put down. Thought I
would lose most of my internal organs.
More accessible than Eritria or the rain forests of Costa Rica, I offer
a road in No. Calif. for a thrill experience. The road goes from US 101
just No. of Orick through part of Redwook National Park across to State
Hwy. 169 in the Hoopa Indian Reservation. The early part is beautiful
old growth redwood forest, very scenic in an intimate way. The middle is
across remote high ridges, very beautiful and scenic in a large vistas
way. Somewhere along there, it goes from paved to dirt, but nicely
graded
<http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/MPhotos/BaldHills/pages/101-0162_IMG.htm>.
Then, it starts down, at that point called Bald Hills Road. The rise
from near sea level has been fairly easy in different parts up to a bit
over 3,000 ft. Now it goes down to 200 ft. in about 2.3 miles as the
crow flies. How far it is as the car skids, I don't know. You can work
it out for yourself, if you want
<http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=10&n=4561462.00012159&e=434985.99999997&datum=nad83>.
As it starts down, the road changes character dramatically. What was a
pretty nice dirt road becomes a surface of some gravel/broken rock mixed
with LOTs of very fine dirt/dust. It's an amazingly loose surface. The
tires may have traction on the top layer, but it doesn't have much
traction on the lower layers. Then it is graded for drainage to prevent
washouts in winter. Each of the hairpin turns is strongly graded down
towards the outside. There is a berm of the same loose stuff along the
edge, but I'm sure it would offer only token resistance to a vehicle
headed for the woods below.
Every curve was an exciting excercise in balancing sideways and forward
slides to make the turn. I never hit the berms, but came too close a
couple of times. I suppose it might have been worse without anti-lock
brakes, but at the time I didn't notice them helping. One thing I'll say
for the brakes on my non sporting Olds convertible. The pedal got lower
and lower, but never stopped working. Bless four wheel disks. It did
take a few minutes rest at the bottom and about half an hour of gentle
driving on rather level road for them to feel normal again, though. The
other fun part was the amazing cloud of fine, choking dust raised by our
passage. Slow down too much and it was like being in a brown fog, but
harder on the breathing.
This trip was about other things than photography and all I had along
was my then new Can*n S110. I got some nice images elsewhere, but it
wasn't up to the redwoods or the wide vistas. I only took 3 shots along
this road, and none on the "interesting" part
<http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/MPhotos/BaldHills/>. Too busy then. :-)
>On a motorcycle, it is a religious experience.
>
Never, EVER, would I go down that road on two wheels.
Moose
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