Mountain passes on routes from Sparks

The table above lists each pass found on the modeled drive routes from the warehouse in Sparks, the summit elevation from the USGS and whether the data flags a seasonal winter closure. This page explains how to read the table, and what it leaves out.

• Passes listed5
• Highest pass in the tableCarson Pass, 8,580 ft
• Pass on the most routesDonner Summit, I-80, about 7,200 ft

Data: OSRM routing on OpenStreetMap data, free-flow drive from 2277 Glendale Ave, Sparks; USGS Elevation Point Query Service; Caltrans QuickMap road conditions; NDOT road conditions (nvroads.com).

What the five passes are

Donner Summit (I-80, about 7,200 feet) is the main way to Sacramento, the Bay Area and most of California. Conway Summit (US 395, about 8,140 feet) lies on the Eastern Sierra route toward Southern California. Echo Summit and Spooner Summit (both US 50, 7,382 and 7,144 feet) serve Lake Tahoe and Placerville. Carson Pass (CA 88, 8,580 feet) is the highest of the five.

Donner Summit appears on 22 of the 138 route endpoints in the study, Conway Summit on 7, and each of the other three on just one. That count is a feature of where the studied endpoints lie, not a traffic count.

What the closure column means

The data flags a pass as seasonal only if it is normally shut for the whole winter. All five passes carry 'no', so none is treated as gated for the winter. That does not mean they stay open all day. Storms bring chain controls, one-way traffic and temporary closures to I-80, US 50 and US 395, usually for hours rather than days.

Because storm timing is hard to predict, the better plan is to build slack into the pickup and delivery dates rather than to rely on a single day. Your delivery window comes from your written estimate.

Elevation and the move

A summit above 7,000 feet is 2,500 or more feet above Reno's valley floor, which is at roughly 4,500 feet. For a mover, that climb means trucks use lower gears and brakes, and cold sets in earlier on the pass than in town. NOAA's normals show the effect in the Tahoe basin: about 206.6 inches of snow a year at the Truckee Ranger Station, against 20.9 in Reno.

Checking conditions

Two official sources show road status live: Nevada DOT at nvroads.com for Nevada roads, and Caltrans QuickMap for California roads, including chain-control requirements. Check both the day before and the morning of any move that crosses a pass. For more on driving in the region, read winter driving and chain control and the weather calendar.

What the table does not cover

The table lists only passes found on the modeled routes, so it leaves out roads such as the Mt. Rose Highway and passes elsewhere in the West. Elevations are USGS point values at hand-set summit points, except Conway Summit and Donner Summit, which are rounded to the posted summit signs, so they can differ from other sources by a few feet. Route examples in the last column come from the study, and a given pass can serve many other destinations.