Relying on GMaps can be dangerous especially in winter, because it doesn't seem to take time of the year into account.
A few years back we travelled with friends to a mountain resort for the new year's eve. Instead of choosing a longer, well maintained primary road to our destination, it chose a slightly shorter secondary road through a high mountain pass, where it was snowing like hell and obviously no ploughs were around.
I was a passenger and wasn't involved in route selection, but the lesson is that it might be good to take time to discuss this before. Also, zoom out before driving and see high level plan instead of blindly following first-person view of the road. Or, you know, old school low tech solution: call the locals and ask for best road.
I mentioned something similar in another comment. This is the big failure I've seen with Google Maps. Secondary or very secondary roads in winter snow/ice. Doing the country drive thing is (mostly) OK in good weather. It's annoying or worse in a snowstorm or even residual snow.
A few years back we travelled with friends to a mountain resort for the new year's eve. Instead of choosing a longer, well maintained primary road to our destination, it chose a slightly shorter secondary road through a high mountain pass, where it was snowing like hell and obviously no ploughs were around.
I was a passenger and wasn't involved in route selection, but the lesson is that it might be good to take time to discuss this before. Also, zoom out before driving and see high level plan instead of blindly following first-person view of the road. Or, you know, old school low tech solution: call the locals and ask for best road.