I’ve driven Million Dollar Highway twice now, both directions, and it is no joke. Very steep drop-offs, few guardrails, lots of twists and turns, and magnificently beautiful scenery. I have quite a bit of mountain road driving experience under my belt at this point, but parts of Million Dollar Highway can still makes my palms sweat. To date, I still have never pulled our 30′ Airstream along this little stretch of adventure, but it’s on my bucket list and I’m sure it’ll happen at some point in the next few years of traveling. Towing or not, while driving this road demands your full attention, I wouldn’t call it “dangerous”. It does demand your full attention, but 18 wheelers take this route regularly, so it really can’t be all that sketchy for someone towing a fifth wheel or travel trailer. That said, if you’re new to mountain road driving, I might suggest getting some experience on less “exciting” roads first before trying your hand on this one. Like I said, those steep drops without guardrails can make your stomach clench.
We passed through Crawford, CO while driving from Gunnison and Somerset and couldn’t decide whether to take 92 to 133, or be adventurous and take Crawford Rd instead. On the encouragement of an employee at the Lazy J Coffee shop in Crawford who indicated this road is totally safe, we decided to go for it. We were pleased to find nothing of concern whatsoever. The road is smooth and easy. The only “problem” was that we got stuck behind a very slow moving tractor for several miles. Note that as you head north, Crawford Rd turns into Matthews Ln which terminates in Paonia. We turned left on 3rd (Samuel Wade Rd), then continued north on 133 from there.
We’ve driven this road a number of times with our truck alone, but never with our 30′ Airstream. It is indeed bumpy, narrow, and windy, but it’s also relatively short. (And pretty!) We may or may not take it while towing in the future. If we ever do, I’ll add another review to report my experience. If you’re trying to decide wither to take this route or not, I’d walk through it with Google Street View before making a decision.
We’ve driven over this bump a number of times recently, luckily never with our trailer. Even with just our truck, it feels like if it wasn’t for our seatbelts, we’d have smashed our heads on the ceiling of the truck. Definitely use caution if you’re towing anything or driving a large RV.
While on our way to Gateway River RV Park in Carbondale, our TomTom GPS had us taking this road to get there. Thank god my wife looked at Google Maps and saw this dead-end while we were still a good distance away! It was a long day of driving and backing our rig up a 1/4 mile uphill to the nearest intersection in order to turn around would not have been fun. If you have a smaller class B rig, turning around may not be so bad, but with 20 feet of truck and 30 feet of trailer it would have been no picnic. Just to complicate things further, the road here is relatively narrow.
All the roads out here include a lot of ups and downs in close succession, but when we came across this one we stopped in our tracks. It’s far steeper than any of the other grades we encountered in the area, the road narrows significantly at the bottom, and—to top things off—the lowest point was submerged by an inch or two of slowly moving running water. At first, we attempted to back up until we could find a turn around point and reverse course. However, we repeatedly had to stop due to other cars coming from both directions. At one point a local driving by rolled down his window and talked to us. He encouraged us to go forward because it’s ‘not as bad as it seems’. I guess he was right because we did decide to proceed forward, but we had real concerns about scraping the bumper of our 30′ Airstream while climbing the other side of the road. I found no evidence of scraping after we got home, but I would never again attempt to tow our rig across this point in this road. Unless you have a smaller rig (25′ or less), we recommend staying clear of this section of the road.
I’ve driven Million Dollar Highway twice now, both directions, and it is no joke. Very steep drop-offs, few guardrails, lots of twists and turns, and magnificently beautiful scenery. I have quite a bit of mountain road driving experience under my belt at this point, but parts of Million Dollar Highway can still makes my palms sweat. To date, I still have never pulled our 30′ Airstream along this little stretch of adventure, but it’s on my bucket list and I’m sure it’ll happen at some point in the next few years of traveling. Towing or not, while driving this road demands your full attention, I wouldn’t call it “dangerous”. It does demand your full attention, but 18 wheelers take this route regularly, so it really can’t be all that sketchy for someone towing a fifth wheel or travel trailer. That said, if you’re new to mountain road driving, I might suggest getting some experience on less “exciting” roads first before trying your hand on this one. Like I said, those steep drops without guardrails can make your stomach clench.
We passed through Crawford, CO while driving from Gunnison and Somerset and couldn’t decide whether to take 92 to 133, or be adventurous and take Crawford Rd instead. On the encouragement of an employee at the Lazy J Coffee shop in Crawford who indicated this road is totally safe, we decided to go for it. We were pleased to find nothing of concern whatsoever. The road is smooth and easy. The only “problem” was that we got stuck behind a very slow moving tractor for several miles. Note that as you head north, Crawford Rd turns into Matthews Ln which terminates in Paonia. We turned left on 3rd (Samuel Wade Rd), then continued north on 133 from there.
We’ve driven this road a number of times with our truck alone, but never with our 30′ Airstream. It is indeed bumpy, narrow, and windy, but it’s also relatively short. (And pretty!) We may or may not take it while towing in the future. If we ever do, I’ll add another review to report my experience. If you’re trying to decide wither to take this route or not, I’d walk through it with Google Street View before making a decision.
We’ve driven over this bump a number of times recently, luckily never with our trailer. Even with just our truck, it feels like if it wasn’t for our seatbelts, we’d have smashed our heads on the ceiling of the truck. Definitely use caution if you’re towing anything or driving a large RV.
While on our way to Gateway River RV Park in Carbondale, our TomTom GPS had us taking this road to get there. Thank god my wife looked at Google Maps and saw this dead-end while we were still a good distance away! It was a long day of driving and backing our rig up a 1/4 mile uphill to the nearest intersection in order to turn around would not have been fun. If you have a smaller class B rig, turning around may not be so bad, but with 20 feet of truck and 30 feet of trailer it would have been no picnic. Just to complicate things further, the road here is relatively narrow.
All the roads out here include a lot of ups and downs in close succession, but when we came across this one we stopped in our tracks. It’s far steeper than any of the other grades we encountered in the area, the road narrows significantly at the bottom, and—to top things off—the lowest point was submerged by an inch or two of slowly moving running water. At first, we attempted to back up until we could find a turn around point and reverse course. However, we repeatedly had to stop due to other cars coming from both directions. At one point a local driving by rolled down his window and talked to us. He encouraged us to go forward because it’s ‘not as bad as it seems’. I guess he was right because we did decide to proceed forward, but we had real concerns about scraping the bumper of our 30′ Airstream while climbing the other side of the road. I found no evidence of scraping after we got home, but I would never again attempt to tow our rig across this point in this road. Unless you have a smaller rig (25′ or less), we recommend staying clear of this section of the road.
Here’s a video taken from our dashcam: https://youtu.be/EkHOW9sm_bk