I drove to the Trail Head in my Honda CRX. It was hell and killed off my plans to acclimitize there for my Whitney day hike. I went with full spare and donut spare, tire patch kit, electric air pump and a tarp for the Marmots. My car is even worse than a Stock CRX having:
  • Extra sway-bars that extend below the car (no clearance)
  • 2X stiffer springs
  • High performance shocks.
  • Stiff "Extreme performance" summer tires
  • Polyurethane Bushings.
  • Too high PSI in tires going in.


As you can imagine the vibration was extreme. Basically my sway-bars plowed the big rocks all up that road. I had problems on certain rock strewn hills where I did not have the torque (at 11,000+ feet) to go really slow in 1st gear. Some places I got out of the car and cleared the rocks. There are places where the drainage pipes are sticking out of the roadway. I had to ride the rock ridges instead of the troughs because of the low clearance and the rocks are piled up in the center of road. And then there are the washboards...
I went super slow (less than 10mph) took 1.5-2 hours but I did not get a flat.

Damage:
  • Sway-bar brackets crushed into wedges
  • Cracked windshield.
  • Strut mounts destroyed (wiggly)
  • Wheel alignment obviously trashed.
  • Mechanical speedo went crazy but fixed itself.
  • Two weeks later on my Whitney trip I had electrical problems (caused by the vibration fest?)


I recommending renting a Jeep Wrangler or something extreme and hope the rental company doesn't catch you.