Hills
On a hill road, kilometres are a poor unit and hours are the honest one
Gradient, curvature and the vehicle in front set an average speed that has almost nothing to do with the distance on the signboard.
By Radhika Iyer4 min read
The map is not lying, it is answering a different question
A route planner tells you two towns are a hundred and sixty kilometres apart and offers a driving time that assumes something resembling a road. In the Indian hills that estimate is frequently half of what the journey takes, and travellers keep being surprised by it because the number looks so authoritative.
The mismatch is not mysterious. Average speeds on a mountain road are set by the tightest constraint on the route rather than by the best stretch of it, and on many hill roads that constraint is a hairpin sequence, a single-lane section, or a stretch under repair where traffic moves one direction at a time.
A useful working figure, and it is a rule of thumb rather than a measurement, is that a good hill road runs at roughly a third to a half of plains speed, and a poor one at considerably less. Once you plan in those terms the itinerary starts to behave.
Curvature costs more than gradient
Climbing itself is not especially slow. What consumes the time is the fact that a road gaining height on a steep slope has to do it in switchbacks, and every switchback is a near-stop, a gear change and an acceleration. A road with two hundred bends in fifty kilometres has two hundred of those, and they add up to hours.
Width does the rest. Where the road is cut into a cliff there may be room for one vehicle and a passing place every few hundred metres, so meeting a truck means one of you reverses to the last widening. On a busy day that happens repeatedly, and each occurrence costs minutes that no schedule anticipated.
Then there is the vehicle in front. Heavy trucks climb slowly and there is often nowhere safe to overtake for long stretches, so a convoy forms behind them and everyone travels at truck speed. This is normal, not misfortune, and it should be assumed in any estimate rather than treated as bad luck.
Interruptions are part of the timetable, not exceptions to it
Roadworks in the mountains are frequently a full closure for a set window rather than a lane restriction, because there is not enough width to keep traffic moving past a working excavator. Blasting for road widening closes a stretch for a stated period during the day, and those windows are published locally and are worth asking about before setting off.
Landslip clearance is the other common one. After rain a slope drops material onto the carriageway and machinery has to move it, which usually takes hours. There is no route around, because there is only one road. Vehicles queue, chai gets sold, and the delay is absorbed into everyone’s day.
The way to plan for this is not to predict it but to leave room for it. A day with one drive and one destination survives a three-hour blockage. A day with a drive, a sightseeing stop, another drive and a check-in deadline does not.
Daylight is the hard limit
Almost everybody in the hills drives in daylight, and the reasons hold up: unlit roads with drops on one side, no shoulder to stop on, headlights hidden by bends, animals on the carriageway, and the fact that fog and low cloud settle in the evening in many valleys. Local drivers who know every corner still prefer not to be out after dark.
That converts the day into a fixed budget. Sunrise to sunset in the northern hills gives you something like ten to twelve usable hours depending on the season, minus stops, minus the time it takes to get out of a town in the morning. Anything that does not fit inside that budget is a two-day journey with an overnight in between.
It also explains the very early starts that visitors find excessive. Leaving at five is not local enthusiasm. It is the only way to arrive with light in hand and a margin for whatever the road does in between.
Fuel, food and the gaps between them
On a plains highway you can assume a fuel station within a reasonable distance. In the higher and remoter valleys you cannot, and the standard practice is to fill up wherever fuel is available rather than when the gauge suggests it. Some routes have long stretches with nothing at all, and that fact is well known locally and rarely signposted.
The same applies to food and to cash. Roadside establishments cluster in the towns and thin out on the passes, and card acceptance and mobile connectivity both fail in the places where you would most like them to work. Carrying some cash and something to eat is not survivalism; it is ordinary practice on these roads.
None of this makes hill driving difficult. It makes it a different activity from motorway driving, with its own arithmetic, and the travellers who enjoy it most are the ones who stopped trying to make the map’s estimate come true.
Common questions
How many hours of hill driving is reasonable in one day?
Six to seven is a full day for most people, and beyond that fatigue and the light both start working against you. Two consecutive long driving days is where trips usually start feeling like a chore rather than a holiday.
Is it better to hire a local driver?
For anyone not used to mountain roads, generally yes. Local drivers know the blasting windows, the sections that break up after rain, and the etiquette of who reverses when two vehicles meet, which is knowledge that takes a while to acquire from the driving seat.
Do bikes actually go faster?
On a twisting single-lane road a motorcycle does gain time, mainly because it can filter past a queue and needs less room to pass. It also exposes the rider to the weather and to a much worse outcome from a mistake, so the time saved is not free.
Reporter, Traveology
Radhika has written about states, hills, coast & islands for most of the last decade and is happiest when a piece answers the question completely.
