Rocky Road Difficulties

Yesterday my daughter, her husband, and their small son drove with me from here up to St. Elmo in my Prius. St. Elmo is a semi-ghost town in the central Colorado mountains, about 20 minutes up the canyon from here. The road is fine--partly paved and the rest well-packed dirt. The Prius drove very nicely as it climbed the grade.

Leaving St. Elmo, I turned onto the Iron City road, which goes down the canyon for several miles and then rejoins the main county road. I hadn't driven that road for a while but I didn't recall any problems with it. I expected to find a driveable road and I sought some variety in our route.

We soon came to a rocky place where I had maneuver a bit to get through the rocks in the road. But no big deal. Then another such place appeared and we manuevered through that. Then another, longer one, after about a mile. This one involved quite a downhill slope, too.

We soon came to another, and it no longer seemed wise to continue down this road. So we found a place to turn around, but the Prius wouldn't go back up the last place we'd come through!

In a conventionally powered vehicle, you can usually put it in the lowest gear, put the front wheel right up against the rock to be climbed over, and force your way up and over. But the Prius didn't work like that. It's a rather peppy car, but the hybrid system does not seem to have much torque until the car is moving. Trying to start out against a rock, the Prius will NOT hop over! Hybrids apparently don't work that way. It's a matter of what torque the system produces, at what speeds. The strength of the hybrid system lies elsewhere.

Much of the problem arose because the Prius is very low to the ground. I was having to go certain ways that I wouldn't ordinarily have chosen because clearance had suddenly become the determining factor. Fortunately, the Prius can turn on a very small radius. This was invaluable when manuevering around on carefully chosen paths among the rocks.

We'd gotten here because I'd driven too far on a road that the Prius was having difficulty handling. Now, we were between a place that had made us turn around, and a place behind that the Prius couldn't climb. Were we stuck?

A possible long walk home and an expensive tow truck rescue pushed us downward. By moving some rocks, we got through the place that had made us turn around earlier. But what lay ahead? Damage to the Prius because of the low clearance was a major concern.

We went on down the canyon through additonal difficult places. But there was no turning back. Before long, we rejoined the main road and drove home.

The Prius simply isn't an offroad vehicle, more because of the low clearance than the hybrid powerplant.