i just got back from a 2 week vacation to 'wheel with the members of my former 4x4 club at the sandlake,OR dunes. since i broke my front R&P in the cj, i decided to leave a little early and take the scenic route back to PHX. my wife and i decided to take the 31' motorhome towing a 20' trailer with my cj7 on it to lake tahoe through reno. that was the 1st mistake. i figured it couldn't be any worse that the siskyous and shasta that we negotiated with ease. well, it was a little steeper and a little longer than anything near shasta, southen OR, and the OR coast range. i made it up, albeit slow, made it up and over. the way down to the lake taxed the brakes. they started to squeal. uh oh. we had a good time at tahoe and left the next day. this is when i started to realize that the sierra's suck. i swear we hit every mountain pass around that lake. one in particular, the rig almost overheated and spit the coolant out as i was cresting the hill at 17 mph with the 454 floored in low gear. on the backside going down the steep ass mountain, it was all i could do to keep the thing at a controllable speed in 2nd. at the bottom of monitor pass i had to make a right to head toward markleeville. very steep with a stop sign. well, i had boiled the brake fluid and the pedal went to the floor, several times. i had to take the sharp right at about 25 mph and about flipped it over. i made the corner and parked it on the side of the road. i managed to convince my wife that the brakes would work again after they cooled down. after an hour of sitting, we were off again thinking the worst was over. wrong. little did i know the sierras are a very long mountain range and i spent most of the day above 7000 ft. low gear up and low gear down. my target speed became 20mph. hoping to go that fast up, and wishing to stay that slow down. we finally got out of the mountains and on some flat 2 lane highway. we wanted to cross over from 395 to 95 and go through vegas, see the hoover dam, and back to az. that was the 2nd mistake. we looked at the map and decided on a road with the least amount of backtracking. 168 to 266 to 95. seemed like a good plan. as we exited 395 onto 168, there was a sign that said "steep hills, sharp corners, not reccommended for large trucks." crap, back across the mountains. my wife said "i don't know about this" and i said "it can't be any worse than what we've already been through." boy was i wrong. we began traversing a highway that resembled an asphalt goat trail. at one point i had to sqeeze the rig through a one lane crack in the rocks and crested the hill a 7 mph. floored in low gear. i thought i was going to have to unload the cj and pull the motorhome over the top. going down was a 9% grade M F'er and by now the brakes aren't just squeaking, it's the metal to metal grind where you know you're damaging very expensive rotors. i had dialed up the trailer brakes to a very aggressive setting to help slow the 20,000 lbs. of mass down a little. needless to say, i burned those out too and they were in need of adjustment. at long last we made it out of the sierras and to the comforting flat desert of nevada.

the moral of the story is: anyone towing to the rubicon or lake tahoe from the east, don't cut across from 95 to 395 on 266 and 168. find another way, even if it means backtracking. go to i-5 to sac and cut over. THE SIERRAS SUCK! THEY'RE BIG AND UNFORGIVING.