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California 36 [Locator Map]

California
Route 36

A lightly-traveled super-twisty. One the best twisty roads I've ever had the pleasure of driving on.

Section Covered:
Alton, CA to Red Bluff, CA

Length:
222 km (133 miles)

Ratings:   Rankings:
Scenic Impact 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Overall Score: 9.1
Twistiness 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Fun-to-Drive: 9.7
Surface Quality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10  
Traffic 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Rankings and ratings explained

California's backroads are a motorsports enthusiast's heaven. Generally speaking, the roads are superbly paved, they follow every nook and cranny of the often-mountainous terrain (meaning they are VERY twisty), and they have NO TRAFFIC.
California route 36 is a cream-of-the-crop example of this. When I drove this road, all 222 long kilometres of it, I may have come up behind maybe 10 cars in total. That's 10 cars in 2 and a half hours of prime twisty road driving.
California 36 [Detail Map]
What's more, the road itself is fantastic. It is wide, with nicely paved shoulders in many places, and has many different flavours of tight twisties (well, everything except hairpins, I guess). One section near the eastern end at Red Bluff has the most roller-coaster like tight twisties I've ever seen. Huge, plunging drops or steep rises in the road followed by super tight turns, all superbly paved.

Unfortunately, this road is so good, I didn't want to get out of my car and take pictures of it (next time I am definitely going to take a picture of the roller-coaster section!). If you get a chance, enjoy this road!

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