Erebus Highway (2) - Sol 529

"...But there's a catch: the entrance to the Erebus Highway is not straight South of us, along the troughs. It's a bit off to the East, on a heading closer to approx. 160°. That means that in order to get to it, we'd have to head off cross-country, going up and over quite a few ripple crests. That's do-able, but it's also a lot slower than just bombing straight South down a nice trough.
So: If we do head for the Highway, we make slow progress for awhile, but maybe we get to a better route to Erebus Crater. If we head down the troughs instead, they take us at a pretty decent speed directly to... Erebus Crater!
So it should work either way. We're planning the weekend drive as I type this, and after a bit of discussion we've decided to stay for now in this nice wide trough that we've found and try to get as much southward distance within it as we can. Whether or not we're actually going to "hit the Highway" is an open question at this point, but Erebus isn't too far off either way you cut it..."