Timing Your Cycling Tour: Pass Planning Resources

As promised in last week's blog post, I have a tip on how to determine when mountain passes typically open and closed. In general, you won't find a better spot to begin this research than an individual state's Department of Transportation (DOT) website. Check out this nice round up of state resources created by the US Department of Transportation.

California and Washington are great examples of helpful displays of this information, unfortunately, every state site has its own organizational system. The place to start on most DOT sites is to locate a tab or label called "Travel" or maybe "Highways". If you keep clicking likely suspects on those pages, you'll eventually find the jackpot. Or, if you don't see something that seems plausible, utilize the site's search function using words like "highway conditions" or "winter driving" (without quotes) to yield the best results.

Of course, if you're planning to ride a route in the Adventure Cycling Route Network, a good general guide of when to ride can be found in the Routes & Mapping FAQ page. Scroll down the list to this question, "When is the best time to ride a specific route?" One of the criteria for developing the answer for each route was evaluating the viability of crossing mountain passes.

in this photo: Julie Huck is enjoying fresh snow at the top of Chief Joseph Pass on Montana/Idaho border on the first day of spring in 2009.

photo courtesy of msbicycle's photostream on Flickr

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GEOPOINTS BULLETIN is written by Jennifer 'Jenn' Milyko, an Adventure Cycling cartographer, and appears weekly, highlighting curious facts, figures and persons from Adventure Cycling's Route Network with tips and hints for personal route creation thrown in for good measure.