Discovery Can Be Hazardous

There’s a shortcut from Bishop, California to Nevada. Climbing 3,000 feet into the White Mountains, it crosses a plateau bordering the northern edge of Death Valley before briefly ascending again to 7,400 feet into the Sylvania Mountains. Then it takes a final dive down the other side, dumping onto US95 between Goldfield and Bonnie Claire; basically the middle of nowhere. CA168 unceremoniously turns into NV266 but no one ever notices. It’s because they’re too busy just trying to survive.

This road, taken at speed, is borderline terrifying. Take a left off US395 at Big Pine and hold on. Narrow, no shoulder, often no fog line, sometimes no centerline. Carved through high boulders and solid rock, this worn and sun-bleached blacktop curves, undulates and weaves up, around, even through a dizzying myriad of obstacles. Sometimes the untamed brush encroaches on the road, making an already narrow path even tighter. But the crazy part, the part that really elevates the terror to another level, is the constant ups and downs of the roadbed. This road bumps and drops, rises and twists more than anything I’ve ever seen, much less driven. It’s a bit like taking a 20-foot power boat on a rollicking, harrowing ride over 10-foot swells while battling tides and currents.

I’ve driven twisting, switchback-laden roads for days through the Alps, but nothing compares to 168. The road is constantly rolling up and down, through straights, into corners, around bends. Rolls abruptly climb into corners that drop sharply on the other side. The car is always unweighting at the wrong time, making turn-in and holding traction tenuous. And there’s no room for a run out. It’s rock walls or big boulders or a cliff. Taking blind corners is one thing; taking one with a huge crest at the entry or in the middle of a corner sounds a lot like suicide.

When a car unweights like that, drivers are taught to keep the wheel straight. There’s no way to do that here. There’s nothing left but a giant leap of faith, to put it mildly. This is more like praying the road is going to continue doing what it appears to be doing, because if it doesn’t all bets are off. There’s little to instill confidence that all the other rules of roadbuilding haven’t been bent or completely ignored – consistent adherence to breaking those rules is the only thing making driving it possible. This crazy, nonsensical engineering succeeds because it does all that. But that’s where the theory of consistency ends.

Those blind corners drop and move with no uniformity or certainty. And it’s constant. The rolls and corners, rocks, walls and cliffs never stop coming, one immediately after another. Rapid fire. How fast can you assimilate? You have to be ready for the next corner before the current one is done. All while trying to control off-camber chassis roll, push and God-forbid a little bump steer from that damn blind 10-foot drop.

Oh, and did I mention there are few recommended speed signs? Afterall, what’s the point? There are hundreds of corners. You can’t post that many signs.

It’s a rollercoaster, only there’s no guarantee you’ll get to the end. At one point, a warning sign appears, stating the road narrows. “What the hell?! The road’s already narrow!” A few minutes later comes another warning sign, “One lane road ahead.” WTF?!

It’s true. The road narrows to a single, unmarked lane between two 20-foot rock walls. There is no fog line, no shoulder. The opening is paved from one wall to the other. And it has corners. You don’t know what lurks on the other side. More rule breaking.

That they built a road like this in the US isn’t unheard of; that they still use it and have the nerve to designate it a State Road is the wild part. Thank God I only ran into the 18-wheeler, with the 50-foot trailer of alfalfa, as I was nearing the eastern edge of the plateau. He must have been stopping somewhere up top, as I can’t imagine there being any other solution. I don’t know how he could possibly negotiate those corners. I had a hard time understanding how he mastered the only slightly less demanding climb from the eastern side.

So, this is a road for the ages. It’s a roughly 75 mile stretch of driver enthusiast mind bending. And this isn’t a high-speed trip. While in the throes of the rollercoasters it would be rare for anyone to exceed 50 mph.

If you seek it out, remember I warned you. Don’t try this at night. It would be very slow going, and more than a little scary. If the boogie man were to build a road, this would be it. Go early in the morning so there’s no on-coming traffic. Any on-coming vehicle could really ruin your day – especially if it’s a semi.