How far out of the way are you willing to go?
I-15 is the fourth side of a square that includes Las Vegas, Henderson, Searchlight, and Mountain Pass. On the interstate, it’s a little more than 50 miles from the city to the pass. Taking the other three sides of the square, call it 60 miles south through Henderson to Searchlight, then 22 miles west on NV 164 to join up again with I-15, for a total of 82 miles.
But that only brings you to 50 miles east of Baker, so it’s probably not worth an extra 30 miles of light traffic to avoid a mere 50 miles of heavy traffic.
Interstate 15 is also the hypotenuse of a triangle that includes Vegas, Needles, and Barstow. The side from Vegas due south to Needles is around 100 miles. The side from Needles due west to Barstow is around 130 miles. That’s a total of 230 miles, compared to 160 miles direct on I-15 from Vegas to Barstow along the hypotenuse.
Now, you’ll zip right along on US95 from Henderson to Needles and on I-40 from Needles to Barstow. Let’s say you average 75 miles an hour. It’ll take you three hours from Vegas to Barstow.
By comparison, if you average 50 miles an hour on I-15, it’ll take you around three hours and 15 minutes from Vegas to Barstow. So you could, conceivably, save 15 minutes (if traffic is so bad that you can only go 50 mph on I-15). But you’ll have to cover an extra 70 miles (and the attending two to four gallons of gasoline) to do it.
Is it possible for you to leave early Sunday morning? That’ll add 15 or 20 mph onto your average speed; southern California-bound traffic really starts to build up in the afternoon.
Can you delay your departure till Monday morning? You’ll miss the Sunday traffic entirely.
