Some of you might remember from our Gloucestershire get together, that Blue Yonder and I were heading of to Europe with our Silver Ladies. Well we are here enjoying the Swiss rain in the Alps above Sion. We are, at the end of the week heading for lake Iseo in Italy. This is nothing new for us and normally we enjoy exploring the different passes that takes us out of Swizterland into Itally. However this time it has just occurred to me that we now have our Eriba Triton trailing on the back, and we are not that experienced at towing here. Therefore I think some planning needs to be done, and advice sort from those who have the knowledge about Alpine passes and caravans. We do not really want to use Tunnels like Grd St Bernards. Has anybody got expiriance of such and can give us novices some advice please?

This is all going to sound terribly obvious but you need to remember that you have behind you somewhere around 800 to 1000 Kg of unpowered extra weight which needs pulling uphill so more power needed than normal ie you will most likely need to change down more than you used to.
Also down hill it will be trying to push you downhill a bit faster than you may be used to so think about braking a little earlier than you are used to.

Not really much to add to what the others have already said other than ........don't even think about it. The Alps are our back yard and we're to be found somewhere aloft at least once a month either with our motorbikes or with the car (seldom). Whilst the passes can be extremely scenic you will need high and sustained concentration levels due to the numerous curves (often with adverse cambers) which is why they are much loved by motorcyclists, but they can also be quite narrow in places that you would ideally like them to be wide hence bikers and sports car drivers attempting to ride/drive a straight line through the curves (as would a proper racer) which often results in you suddenly being faced with oncoming traffic.

On the ascent the air naturally gets thinner putting additional strain on your cooling system in an attempt to keep the system at normal temperatures. And remember, you'll be pulling a load for killometre after kilometre in low gear and often in first gear on very tight bends and you'll then struggle to get up the gearbox afterwards. The descent in many ways can be much worse because you'll be forever on the brakes.

Although I've seen the odd motorhome climbing over the passes from time to time I can't ever recall seeing a caravan being towed so maybe you can read something into that. There are of course many alternative and equally scenic routes through the valley's which may add a few kilometres to your overall journey but far better to be safe than sorry in my opinion.

I have to be honest I've done lots of them including Grossglockner and Stelvio but with a bigger van. I agree with a lot of the comments on here, however it's also those roads that ar'nt necessarily classed as passes that can catch you out. The road from Mittenwald into Innsbruck is really steep, and even with a 2.5 ltr diesel shogun in 1st gear (selected at the top) towing a large german van, we experienced brake fade immediately, l I began to have concerns, so I pulled the car handbrake on as well, we stopped, and I selected low ratio, which was fine, but you won't have that option!

If you find yourselves having to do hairpins you will need to be aware of the step up / down between entering / leaving the bend, this can be considerable. Just last month in Boscastle, as you climb out towards Tintagel, there was a tow vehicle with a van "grounded" because he had neglected to allow for this.

Select low gear early, keep your revs reasonable, use your engine to brake, make stops where safe to do so, and pre plan.

Enjoy yourselves and do what you want to do, we did and would do it again! I'm not critisising any of the above advice at all, it's all pertinent, but your only here once, so enjoy it. Take the advice applicable to you and enjoy yourselves

The photo was taken at the top of Grossglockner and we stayed at a campsite in Heiligenblut on the way down.

Now come on, Agger, be honest - you're not actually classifying the Großglockner as a mountain pass are you? Ok, in theory it is and in winter the snow can be as high as a house which makes sense really considering it's Austria's highest mountain. In reality though, and whilst it's much loved by motorcyclists, there's nothing about the road that would even test a 90 year old lady riding a push bike let alone pulling a caravan. That said, I'll leave others to pass final judgement and here's a video I made of most of the road starting from the Heiligenblut hotel and running south to north.



Now the Tende Pass might be another story of course.

There are plenty of passes like Grossglockner and many others single track with passing places, i never intimated they were all like it, thats your opinion what I was saying and thought I made clear was they should gleanthe information and do what suits them, I'm not getting into a passing contest

Whoa old son, time to climb off that Donkey and drink your milk. My post wasn't supposed to be critical of anything you said but simply adding to the general thread.

Which camera do you use Deeps? I was looking at this earlier

1080p Digital Dashboard Camera at Lidl £39.99

Yours seems to work really well.

Quote: hob wrote in post #10

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Which camera do you use Deeps?

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Thanks all for your replies and advice. Novice caravaners we might be but thankfully we have spent some years pushing Valerie over mountain pass so we know only to well the behaviours of other drivers and road users. I take note of all you comments with regards to how the train can possibly behave and will do some careful planning.

A long time ago very early 70's I was in Osnabruck West Germany, in the Corps of Royal Engineers. We had regular briefings about the soviet threat and were told that lots of European bridges had enlarged manholes at either end, this was so the bridges could be blown up in case of invasion.

A small team of us were tasked to spend 7 months in Switzerland, Austria, Italy and Luxembourg. Our task was to evaluate what would be needed to effect a temporary repair should the bridges need to be blown. We spent our time living in various hotels etc. We criss crossed mountains on foot, by motorbike and by civilian Land Rovers. A team of cartographers from 42 Survey RE joined us for accurate measurements and map fixes etc.

We made our recommendations and these were accepted by NATO heirarchy (despite non membership by some countries)

A few years later I was at Long Marston near Stratford upon Avon and saw 360 bridge sets destined for those countries and to allow overbridging to take place.

As young guys we had a blast, no Eriba's but plenty of passes