Guide
The steepest roads you can drive
Steepness changes a road completely: first gear, a hot clutch and a windscreen full of sky. These are the steepest roads in our catalogue, ranked by the sharpest pitch measured in each road’s own elevation profile. The numbers are taken from the data, not the warning signs, which have a habit of exaggerating.
Hardknott & Wrynose Passes7 mi · 18 min · 35 cornersView the roadbook ›
Max gradient
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1
33%≈ 1-in-3
Hardknott & Wrynose Passes
England’s steepest tarmac, and the benchmark for the whole guide. The back-to-back Wrynose and Hardknott passes include gradients as severe as 1-in-3, unguarded hairpins on single-track tarmac, the kind of climb that boils clutches and nerves in equal measure. This is gradient as genuine challenge, a road unsuitable for anything large and unwise in anything but good conditions. Drive it west toward Eskdale so Wrynose comes first, treat it as a clutch-control exam with a Roman fort for a view, check the forecast, and pick which story you want: the sublime one or the terrifying one.
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2
33%≈ 1-in-3Rosedale Chimney Bank
A short, brutal 1-in-3 that stops caravans and breaks cyclists. This minor road out of Rosedale Abbey gains 173 metres in just over a mile, reaching a gradient as fierce as anything in England, so steep that cyclists know it as the Chain Breaker and signs turn the biggest vehicles away. There is nothing subtle here, no hairpin artistry, just a wall of tarmac heaved up onto the North York Moors. Drive it in the dry, in a low gear, with a car that has the torque for it, and respect a gradient that puts it among the very steepest public roads in the country.
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3
28%≈ 1-in-4Winnats Pass
A near-vertical cleft in the limestone, and one of the steepest, strangest climbs in England. The road threads a narrow gorge west of Castleton, climbing roughly 200 metres past towering pinnacle ridges with a maximum gradient over 28 per cent, the gap funnelling winds so fierce they gave the pass its name, the wind gates. It is short, spectacular and severe, the rock walls closing in as the tarmac tilts up. Drive it slowly, mind the wind and the walkers and cyclists on the narrow climb, and take one of the Peak District’s most dramatic and steepest roads through its limestone gorge with care.
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4
27%≈ 1-in-4Kallikratis Serpentines
The steepest thing in the Mediterranean on this list, and a stack of hairpins to match. The Kapsodasos wall drops off the Cretan plateau in twenty-seven switchbacks with ramps of 26 to 28 per cent, single-track and unguarded, hard on the brakes the whole way down toward the Libyan Sea. Where the English hills are short brutal ramps, this is sustained severe gradient combined with genuine exposure and nowhere to turn around. Drive it in the dry, in daylight, with good brakes and full concentration, and treat one of the steepest and wildest roads in Greece with the seriousness its gradient and its drops demand.
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5
25%≈ 1-in-4Porlock Hill
One of the steepest A-roads in the country, a 1-in-4 wall off the Somerset coast. The A39 hauls itself up Porlock Hill from sea level onto Exmoor in a series of severe hairpins, so steep that a gentler toll road exists alongside for the unsure and the overladen. This is main-road gradient at its most serious, a climb that has ended more clutches and brake sets than any road in the West Country. Drive it up in a low gear, save the brakes on the descent, consider the toll road if you are heavy or uncertain, and respect a gradient that earns its fearsome reputation.
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6
25%≈ 1-in-4Sutton Bank
A 1-in-4 escarpment climb to the finest view in England. The A170 scales Sutton Bank at the western edge of the North York Moors, a steep, sustained pull to a viewpoint James Herriot rated above all others, so severe that caravans are banned outright and drivers are told not to stop on the climb. The gradient is the gatekeeper to one of the great English panoramas. Drive it up in a low gear without pausing, keep momentum on the steep section, and reward yourself at the top with the view over the Vale of York that made the vet-turned-author call it the finest in England.
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7
25%≈ 1-in-4Honister Pass
The Lake District at its steepest, 1-in-4 through the fells. The B5289 climbs from Borrowdale over Honister to Buttermere past the slate mine and beneath the crags, narrow and severely steep with tight bends and sheer drops, the kind of pass that demands a low gear up and real caution down. This is classic Lakeland gradient, a single-track wall of a road through some of the finest mountain scenery in England. Drive it slowly, give way with good grace on the narrow sections, descend in a low gear to save the brakes, and take one of the district’s steepest and most spectacular passes with care.
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8
25%≈ 1-in-4Abergwesyn Pass
The Devil’s Staircase, a 25 per cent drovers' climb over the Cambrians. This single-track former drovers' route between Abergwesyn and Tregaron crosses fourteen empty miles of the Cambrian Mountains, and its famous section, the Devil’s Staircase, stacks steep hairpins reaching around 25 per cent up a wild hillside. The name says it all: this is old, hard, remote gradient, a road the drovers walked cattle over long before tarmac. Drive it in the dry, in a low gear, mind the blind hairpins and the sheep, and take one of the steepest and loneliest roads in Wales across country that has barely changed in centuries.
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9
25%≈ 1-in-4Newlands Pass
A brutally steep Lakeland link over Newlands Hause. The unclassified road runs from Buttermere over the Hause and down through the Newlands Valley toward Keswick, narrow and signed for its severe gradients, one of the more direct and more demanding crossings in the northern Lakes. This is proper single-track fell driving, a steep, tight, hedgeless road through classic mountain scenery. Drive it in a low gear, give way carefully on the narrow sections, mind the sheep and the walkers, and take one of the Lake District’s steeper minor passes for the sharp, scenic climb it is, best on a clear day when the fells are out.
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10
25%≈ 1-in-4Bwlch Penbarras
A savage little hairpin climb under Moel Famau. Bwlch Penbarras crosses the Clwydian range at about 360 m, and its western side is brutal, gaining around 260 metres in 2.25 kilometres with a sustained ramp near 25 per cent, a favourite proving ground for cyclists and a genuine test for a car. It is short and unclassified and fierce, a lane that simply points up the hillside between Moel Famau and Foel Fenlli. Drive it up in a low gear, mind the walkers heading for the hills, and take one of North Wales’s steepest lanes for the sharp, sharp climb it is.
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11
24%≈ 1-in-4Sonora Pass
The steepest, least-tamed crossing of the Sierra Nevada. CA 108 climbs past 9,600 ft on a narrow, twisting ribbon with pitches that bite hard near the summit, gradients up to 24 per cent that make it far fiercer than the tourist passes to the north and south. This is high-altitude gradient combined with narrow, barrierless tarmac, a road that has kept its wild edge where others were smoothed. Open only in the warmer months. Drive it in summer, mind the abrupt steep pitches and the narrow sections, take the altitude into account, and enjoy one of the steepest and rawest passes in California.
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12
22%≈ 1-in-5Mount Washington Auto Road
Steep all the way to the worst weather in America. The Auto Road climbs about 4,600 ft to the 6,288 ft summit at an average grade near 12 per cent, with a final pitch reported around 22, a relentless sustained gradient with sheer unguarded edges and the Presidential Range falling away on every side. This is steepness as endurance, mile after mile of climb rather than a single wall. Take the lowest gear you have on the way down and use the brake-cooling pull-offs. Drive it in the warmer months, respect the violent summit weather, and earn the bumper sticker honestly on one of the steepest sustained climbs in the east.
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13
20%≈ 1-in-5Bealach na Bà
Britain’s most dramatic mountain pass, Alpine hairpins climbing from sea loch to a 626-metre summit.
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14
20%≈ 1-in-5Buttertubs Pass
A quiet single-track climb between two of the Yorkshire Dales, past its namesake potholes.
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15
20%≈ 1-in-5Kirkstone Pass
The highest pass open to traffic in the Lake District, between Windermere and Ullswater.
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16
20%≈ 1-in-5Bain's Kloof Pass
Tarred 1850s convict-built pass above the Witte River.
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17
20%≈ 1-in-5Mangart Saddle Road
Slovenia’s highest road goes nowhere at all: a 15 km dead-end spur through unlit tunnels and rock galleries to a saddle car park high in the Julian Alps.
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18
20%≈ 1-in-5The Burway over the Long Mynd
Shropshire’s highest road, a single-track shelf onto the Long Mynd plateau.
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19
20%≈ 1-in-5Mamore Gap
A steep hairpin notch through the Urris Hills on Donegal’s Inishowen peninsula.
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20
20%≈ 1-in-5Penser Joch (Passo Pennes)
Long high South Tyrol pass on the most direct Bolzano to Sterzing road.
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21
20%≈ 1-in-5Oxi Pass
Route 939, the steep gravel Oxi Pass over the Oxi heath, a white-knuckle shortcut across the mountains in east Iceland.
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22
20%≈ 1-in-5Fleet Moss
The highest surfaced road in the Yorkshire Dales, an unclassified switchback over Fleet Moss linking Wensleydale at Hawes with upper Wharfedale at Kettlewell.
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23
20%≈ 1-in-5Abano Pass
One of the world’s most extreme mountain drives: an entirely unpaved Soviet-era track climbing to 2,826 m with no guardrails, opening the ancient highland province of Tusheti for about 16 weeks a year.
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24
20%≈ 1-in-5Sani Pass
The legendary gravel climb from KwaZulu-Natal up the Drakensberg Escarpment into Lesotho, South Africa’s highest motor pass at 2,876 m, with 13 hairpins, gradients to 1:3 and sheer drops.
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25
20%≈ 1-in-5Tongtian Avenue
Tongtian Avenue, the Road to Heaven, climbs 11 km up the sheer face of Tianmen Mountain through its famous 99 bends, rising 1,100 m to a natural rock arch at 1,300 m.
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26
20%≈ 1-in-5Trampolín de la Muerte
Colombia’s most notorious road snakes 75 km through cloud forest between San Francisco and Mocoa on a single-lane gravel shelf carved into vertiginous cliffs, named for the many fatal accidents along its edge.
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27
20%≈ 1-in-5Wadi Bani Awf Crossing
The Wadi Bani Awf crossing is one of the most dramatic 4WD routes in the Middle East, threading Snake Gorge then scaling the Western Hajar on precipitous switchbacks to the clifftop village of Bilad Sayt.
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28
19%≈ 1-in-5Derebaşı Bends
Turkey’s most extreme mountain road climbs 13 consecutive guardrail-free hairpins through Mount Soğanlı, with sheer drops of hundreds of metres and gradients hitting 17%.
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29
18%≈ 1-in-6Passo del Mortirolo
Cycling’s most feared climb, brutally steep and narrow.
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30
18%≈ 1-in-6Gospel Pass
A single-track ribbon out of Hay-on-Wye squeezing between Hay Bluff and Twmpa at 549 metres, the highest road pass in Wales.
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