Elk Mountain

My recent travels across I-80 took me across Elk Mountain in Wyoming. The winds across this mountain reach 60 MPH and up. The winds are so high and consistent across this mountain that they installed wind mills on top of it to convert the winds into electric energy. When I drove west across the mountain I was loaded with approximately 40,000 pounds of freight, but I still had to turn the steering wheel to the left consistently in order to keep the truck on the road. When I reached areas that the wind was blocked, I could steer straight, but felt like I was going to the right. I was thinking to myself that I would not want to drive an empty trailer across this mountain. Then I heard about a truck that was blown off the road, went across a field, and then stopped straddling a railroad track, but managed to keep the truck upright.

On my east bound trip, a driver behind me asked me how much weight I was carrying. I told him about 10,000 pounds. Apparently he saw me struggling to keep the truck on the road and advised me to go around Elk mountain. I took his advise and drove around Elk mountain using US-30, an eighteen mile additional distance which landed me into Laramie, Wyoming, but well worth the alternative probability of being blown off the road by the high winds blowing across Elk mountain.

Schneider had no training related to high winds and so I had nothing to prepare me for this. If not for the other trucker noticing me being blown around before I got into the higher wind area of Elk mountain, I could have been another casualty in the statistics of people trying to cross this mountain unsuccessfully.

Many thanks go out to the truck drivers who care about each other enough to help each other out when necessary. I have never found a comraderie like this since I served in the armed forces of the United States.