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      02-20-2017, 04:09 PM   #34
mjn77
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Quote:
Originally Posted by absoluteis350 View Post
YES lol
That's the pass that I almost pooped myself on. Because of the time of year (October), running summer tires, snow in the forecast for that night, it was already 6pm, and I was unfamiliar with how much higher it would go

We got to a junction in the road and it was either that Vereina train tunnel (not even sure it was still running that time of night) or Fluela pass.. Here's the excerpt from my ED journal:

Anyway, time and kms wore on, as we drove towards Davos. By now it had started to get dark, but the Nav showed only 26km to Davos. We entered the town of Susch. The sign said left, to Davos, via a moutain pass "Fluela pass". There was a light stating the pass was open (meaning that there were obviously times when it was closed, which definitely came into my thoughts). As it was getting dark, with rain/possibly snow in the forecast and not knowing how high the mountain pass was, I decided I would be more comfortable if I went further north to what appeared to be a nice long tunnel, Vereinatunnel. So I turned onto the main road towards the tunnel, only to realize that there was a little picture of a car on top of a train, on the tunnel sign. Crap.. a car train. No way in hell I was putting my new M3 on a train. But those were my only two options.. no other way to get to Davos. So after my wife and I half-heartedly muttered to each other "how bad can it be, we will be fine, its only 26km", we took the pass. At night. In light rain. With snow in the forecast. By the end of this pass, I had shat myself so very thoroughly. One of the hairiest drives of my life. Let me read for you, an excerpt about the pass from dangerousroads.org: "Conditions can change quickly and be harsh." "Road closures can be frequent." The road ... has a fearsome reputation" and my personal favorite "The road is difficult and it’s a nightmare in the wet or dark (or both)." That is my favorite part: It is a nightmare in the wet and dark, which it was. Oh yea, and possibly snowy too.

So as we started the pass, the temps were fine.. like 40F or thereabouts. The first part of the climb was fine, and I watched the kms to Davos click down. But the road kept climbing, and climbing. And the temperature started dropping. And the temp alarm on the car came on, to add to the ambiance. The worst part was that I had never driven this pass before, and therefore did not know what was to come, how much higher it would go, how much lower the temps would drop, when the snow would start (and how heavily it would snow on the pass, regardless of Davos’s “light” snow forecast), or what awaited us in the darkness. But we drove on slowly, with the “km remaining” ticking down. Then the visibility went to zero, literally. We entered into either a cloud or thick fog, the likes of which I had never seen. We could literally see 3 car lengths, maybe. We literally were driving at a crawl, in a cold sweat, not knowing what was ahead in the dark fog. And the time was ticking away with the prospect of snow getting all the more real with each passing minute. I seem to remember that the forecast had called for light snow at about 7pm, which it basically was by this point. However, we were enticingly close to our destination, like 15km left. So we drove on, white knuckled. This is a photo we took as we emerged from one cloud, right before descending into another cloud, which you can see the road going into. The ambient light was much darker than the photo indicates. We thought of stopping and trying to take some cool ‘in fog headlight’ photos, but I was too concerned with losing any time and potentially what weather we may find on the pass. We eventually made it out of the fog/cloud and to the other side. The drive into Davos was one of the happiest days of my life. We pulled up to the Davos Seehof hotel.


In retrospect, all good fun, lol
I did Val d'Isere in August.......and had to pull over on the climb to allow the snow plough pass

I was on summer tyres, and no traction.
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