road conditions - driving through Nevada

[pixiewings71]

The grapevine is a stretch of I-5 north of metro Los Angeles. It's a long grade up and over some mountains. The top isn't all the high of elevation so normally winter storms bring rain. Once in a while it gets cold enough and will snow. In all the years I've driven through there I've seen snow only once and highway was still easily passable but have heard of a few times its been closed.

Check weather reports as you travel and you can always pick a different route such as cutting over to Lancaster or over to highway 101.

This is true, but even if you have snow tired or chains you cannot cross the GV if it's "bad" enough. We made this drive countless times over 2 years, we experienced snow while crossing once, there was a pace car and everyone was going about 30 mph tops, it took forever but once we were over it was absolutely fine. The other time was last year over Pres Day weekend, the GV was closed when we were leaving so we had to drive the "other way", which was so packed with traffic it took us 12 hours to get home, twice what it usually takes.

Okay, I thought Grapevine was some little town - I get it now.

No the GV refers to the road, I'm honestly not sure why, it's Tejon Pass and you pass Tejon Ranches when you go thru.

I want to mention that while the grapevine gets closed now and then. I and maybe you would consider the driving on the grapvine when it's closed like a typical march day in my driveway. To be bluntly honest most of the people driving it just don't know a thing about driving in snow and they make a mess of it.

While this is true for many people (ourselves included, we had good experience snow driving), you're unfortunately also right about most people doing it just have NO clue...BUT that is also true for some people driving thru the Sierra's, which will have a lot more snow but also a lot more inexperienced people driving it. Driving in the snow is always a good thing to learn, as is driving in the rain. And to be brutally honest, most So Cal people don't know how to do that either.

Holy cow, I remember this route when I was a kid (lived in Reno and family in San Jose) and that was before the interstate came in and the road went right by the Donner area..super scary scary in weather...they have at times also closed the pass...You could cut down toward Vegas and over, but I think that road is still a pretty crappy 2 laner, isn't it? Any option would work, just be mindful of conditions and narrow roads.

They do close this pass, but it's very rare that they do. They normally just have the restrictions.