The worst clinchable road in the US

[ua747sp]

This was the first road I thought about when I read the thread now too. Drove it downhill in 2018 in a compact rental car. A few places where you had to go gentle cause of stormwater erosion and some narrow sections up near the top. Otherwise was driveable and not *the worst* road I've done in a small car, but definitely the worst road in the US I have. Would have absolutely preferred a high-clearance vehicle, and I wouldn't want to try to take it uphill in a small car or in a low-clearance car I owned.

I ran across this thread linked in another more recent post (my apologies if I shouldn't bring it back from the dead). But NM165 remains the only road I decided not to clinch, not even chancing it in a rental car. I started proceeding down from Sandia Peak, past the large "MOUNTAINOUS UNIMPROVED ROAD AHEAD NO TURN AROUND" sign, then encountered a downed tree maybe a half-mile later. I put the car in reverse back up the hill and said "well, guess that's not happening today."

GMSV imagery also ends rather abruptly before the spot where I saw the tree. I do see three TM users have clinched it, though!

[Duke87]

See I deliberately did it uphill because I figured if I ended up encountering something that forced me to turn around or back up, I wanted my escape to be downhill. After all, if I was able to make it across something going uphill without getting stuck, I can make it across the same thing going downhill without getting stuck. But the converse is not guaranteed.

The other thing with roads like this is that there condition will vary depending on when it was last graded and how much it has rained since then (as well as how much it has rained recently, which means mud).

When I did it there were a few things a compact/low clearance vehicle definitely would not have made it past. I don't find it totally implausible, however, that on one of the road's better days, this might not be the case.