What do you call an encircling road climbing up a hill?

Question

I base my question on this question: What is this type of road called in English?

From that post, I learned that this kind of roads are called Switchback or Serpentine switchback photos

By definition, a switchback is "a 180° bend in a road or path, especially one leading up the side of a mountain." Basically, it only represents paths of a "zig-zag" shape.

But what about a circular or rotating one like the below, which do not bear the "zig-zag" meaning?

spiral mountain trail 1 spiral mountain trail 2

I don't think I have ever heard the proper name for this, but your terminology in the question told me immediately what you were trying to convey, so I would say it works just the way you said it. — CaptainSkyfish, Sep 10 '20 at 16:40

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 11 '20 at 22:19

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I’m not aware of any standard term, but I think most English speakers would understand if you called it a “spiral” road or said the road “spirals up/down the hill.”

answered Sep 11 '20 at 22:19

StephenS

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 10 '20 at 17:24

I don't know that you will find a word that is commonly used for this type of road. They are very uncommon in the U.S. The only place I've ever seen anything similar is on Iron Mountain road in South Dakota. It's called a pigtail bridge and it doesn't encircle the the hill it merely replaces one of the switchback segments, functioning as a bridge and spiraling you upwards to the next switchback segment. Search the web for Iron mountain road pigtail for some examples.

What do you call an encircling road climbing up a hill?

2 Answers2