Bitterwater Road

Back in February after some significant rains had fallen I decided a rural drive was in order and took Bitterwater Road from California State Route 46 south to California State Route 58.

Bitterwater Road is a rural road 32 miles in length in the Temblor Ranges near the San Andreas Fault. Most of Bitterwater Road is within San Luis Obispo County with a small portion in Kern County. From CA 46 south the first segment of Bitterwater Road is in San Luis Obispo County.

Most of Bitterwater Road is extremely poorly maintained; especially the northern segment in San Luis Obispo County which is largely open range. The roadway is wide enough for two vehicles and isn't a difficult drive aside from the local animal population.

Bitterwater Road takes a sudden easterly shift approaching Annette Road where it briefly enters Kern County. Annette Road more or less takes traffic northward towards Keck's Corner on CA 46.

This photo looking south along the Kern County portion of Bitterwater is one of my personal favorite monochrome road photos. I really love the conveyance of desolate isolation the fog and narrow roadway adds.

It isn't too long southbound before Bitterwater Road reenters San Luis Obispo County and obtains a center stripe. This segment is much more well maintained and remains a mostly normal roadway south to CA 58.

Water drainage along Bitterwater Road is virtually non-existent along the entire 32 miles.

There is a brief climb up to a summit which is approximately 2,300 feet above sea level. The road is bad enough to slow down to about 40 MPH climbing uphill southbound.

The cow population proved an issue for me on the February trip down Bitterwater Road, especially at summit. After waiting for about five minutes I got a lucky break and trucker scared the bovine obstruction back to their farm.

After passing the cattle ranches the La Panza Range to the southwest came into view covered in clouds. Bitterwater Road straightens out significantly approaching it's southern terminus at CA 58.

For some reason Bitterwater Road never was part of the Signed County Route program despite being really an ideal for it. I've generally used Bitterwater Road to get from the Fresno area south to Soda Lake in the Carrizo Plain National Monument in the past. I don't have any clear maps showing when Bitterwater Road was built but it appears to have been completed some time after the 1930s.

Comments

Paper Highways: The Unbuilt New Orleans Bypass (Proposed I-410)

There are many examples around the United States of proposed freeway corridors in urban areas that never saw the light of day for one reason or another. They all fall somewhere in between the little-known and the infamous and from the mundane to the spectacular. One of the more obscure and interesting examples of such a project is the short-lived idea to construct a southern beltway for the New Orleans metropolitan area in the 1960s and 70s. Greater New Orleans and its surrounding area grew rapidly in the years after World War II, as suburban sprawl encroached on the historically rural downriver parishes around the city. In response to the development of the region’s Westbank and the emergence of communities in St. Charles and St. John the Baptist Parishes as viable suburban communities during this period, regional planners began to consider concepts for new infrastructure projects to serve this growing population. The idea for a circular freeway around the southern perimeter of t

Hernando de Soto Bridge (Memphis, TN)

The newest of the bridges that span the lower Mississippi River at Memphis, the Hernando de Soto Bridge was completed in 1973 and carries Interstate 40 between downtown Memphis and West Memphis, AR. The bridge’s signature M-shaped superstructure makes it an instantly recognizable landmark in the city and one of the most visually unique bridges on the Mississippi River. As early as 1953, Memphis city planners recommended the construction of a second highway bridge across the Mississippi River to connect the city with West Memphis, AR. The Memphis & Arkansas Bridge had been completed only four years earlier a couple miles downriver from downtown, however it was expected that long-term growth in the metro area would warrant the construction of an additional bridge, the fourth crossing of the Mississippi River to be built at Memphis, in the not-too-distant future. Unlike the previous three Mississippi River bridges to be built the city, the location chosen for this bridge was about two

Huey P. Long Bridge (New Orleans, LA)

Located on the lower Mississippi River a few miles west of New Orleans, the Huey P. Long Bridge is an enormous steel truss bridge that carries both road and rail traffic on an old-time structure that is a fascinating example of a bridge that has evolved in recent years to meet the traffic and safety demands of modern times. While officially located in suburban Jefferson Parish near the unincorporated community of Bridge City, this bridge’s location is most often associated with New Orleans, given that it’s the largest and most recognizable incorporated population center in the nearby vicinity. For this reason, this blog article considers the bridge’s location to be in New Orleans, even though this isn’t 100% geographically correct. Completed in 1935 as the first bridge across the Mississippi River in Louisiana and the first to be built in the New Orleans area, this bridge is one of two bridges on the Mississippi named for Huey P. Long, a Louisiana politician who served as the 40th Gove