grade=100(rise/run)

We went to Butte the other day and had to climb and descend this decently steep hill on West Park Street.

Denizens of the City by the Bay (home, incidentally, to only the ninth and tenth steepest of this country's ten steepest streets (stretches of 22nd and Filbert, for the interested)) aren't likely to find this street very impressive but keep in mind that at this time of year it's a sheet of ice. And probably a quarter to a third of the drivers in Butte are drunk at any given time.

As always, down was more nerve-racking than up, but Gertie did fine. The ridge on the horizon is the Great Divide.


Unfortunately we don't have any pictures, but a few days before Thanksgiving we went to scout a forest service cabin with the idea of renting it for the weekend. Melissa was driving on the unserviced (viz., unplowed) forest road and as it got worse, asked me when she should turn around. I recited my boilerplate for such situations: don't drive up anything you don't think you can drive down (of course, the converse (or would it be the obverse?) also applies). About a mile from the cabin she bravely charged up a steep ice-covered hill--about a 12% grade, I later determined--making it about three-quarters the way up before it was clear Gertie wasn't gonna make it. There was no way to perform a safe y-turn, so we c.a.r.e.f.u.l.l.y backed down the hill in the fading light, and made a note to get Gertie some chains.

View Almost to the High Rye Cabin in a larger map