Fun trip around Hope Valley in R1T

[mikehmb]

Had an opportunity to bail out for a quick weekend very mild semi-overlanding trip up in Hope Valley with a friend in his stock (except with KO2s - this matters later) 4Runner Off-Road.

First off, it's worth mentioning for the millionth time that opening up the Supercharger network is absolutely a game changer. Whereas this trip would have previously required going through South Lake Tahoe (only a 50-ish mile detour total) to get to the EA at BofA, I was able to just charge up in Jackson while grabbing lunch @ Mel's.

SC rate mid-morning on a weekend was around $0.52/kWh, fyi.

And Mel's is delicious.

FYI - Service shut off drive-cam, so all the videos I expected to get from this trip didn't happen. I noticed after the trip ... <sigh>

Next was just to blast up 88 to Hope Valley. We turned off at Red Lake (SOC around 70%) to go up and around the old road to Blue Lakes. While we ended up turning around when it got really interesting (didn't bring recovery gear - this wasn't meant to be a rock-crawling trip), it was a lot of fun and of course the Rivian was flawless over what off-roaders would call moderate, as it's nowhere near crawling up 4' tall boulders. Fun though!
And piece of cake for the truck. Sorry for the crap photo - this is a screen grab from a video my friend was taking as he was bouncing over rocks.

Got really close, but at the last section we called it because we weren't fully prepared and didn't want this to become an expensive weekend.

Had we pushed on, I have no doubt we would have made it just fine, but I've had expensive and time-consuming experiences in this general area before in my TJ. Not on this road, but at 8k' I didn't feel (with Covid) capable of walking around the trail to spot and see what was coming next. Better to get to camp where the beers are than try to get a cell signal to call my wife and ask her to start looking at replacement R1Ts.

After we spun back around, hit the pavement, and went up to Blue Lakes, we planned to up around the other end of that road to explore and see if we chickened out or were justified in our decision.

This is where, on the flattest gravel road ever, I must have hit a sharp rock, because the TPMS lit up on the dash and I then had the sinking feeling of watching, in real time, the air pressure drop in the pass-rear tire. 46...45...44...43 (about 1 PSI per 3 seconds). I ripped back the quarter mile to the pavement so I could have a clean-ish place to swap tires.

Here's the tire a few moments after I got there.

The gash happened in one of the sipes on a tread block, so I had hope I could plug it. This hope was misplaced - the plug wouldn't seal after several attempts (over 20psi, anyway), so I swapped out of the spare.

Blowouts can happen anywhere, any time. Never leave home without a spare! I'll bring the damaged tire in today to see if I can get it plugged by a pro.

Anyway - wonderful trail, beautiful (if windy) day, and ended up at a great camp site later in the day entirely by accident, because the plan was to boondock.

Note the clean rear tire, freshly installed.

Anyway, fun trip, perfectly reasonable to do with plenty of charging and a road that is moderately challenging if you have Covid and took separate cars so you didn't get your friend sick.

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[FooF]

I wonder if airing down before crawling over rocks would have saved your tire?

 

[mikehmb]

I wonder if airing down before crawling over rocks would have saved your tire?

Possibly? But the damage didn't occur until I was another 20 miles away on paved roads followed by a brief stint on gravel again. I would never have bothered to air down on that flat section of gravel, in any car. A slammed Civic could have done that road no problem.

 

[Singletracker]

Over the years, I have spent countless days up in this area - camping, mountain biking, hiking and exploring. It’s pretty much my home away from home. The upper portion of Forestdale Rd., from Red Lake to Upper Blue Lake, is a little challenging in spots (very rocky), but nothing the R1T can‘t handle. I’ve ventured over that trail numerous times, usually on my mountain bike and once with my Toyota FJ. Haven’t had my R1T over that trail, yet. You should have kept going ?

 

[mikehmb]

Over the years, I have spent countless days up in this area - camping, mountain biking, hiking and exploring. It’s pretty much my home away from home. The upper portion of Forestdale Rd., from Red Lake to Upper Blue Lake, is a little challenging in spots (very rocky), but nothing the R1T can‘t handle. I’ve ventured over that trail numerous times, usually on my mountain bike and once with my Toyota FJ. Haven’t had my R1T over that trail, yet. You should have kept going ?

Yeah man - I stopped at a point you'd probably look at and know immediately where I was. It looked very doable, just didn't want to risk anything dumb for such a short trip, especially since I hadn't done that particular section before. Right near the top, about to round the bend back to Lost Lake.

Really wish we'd finished the loop one direction. Would probably have had better luck with the tire, too.

 

[Singletracker]

Yeah, I‘m pretty sure I know the spot where you stopped. Great views from there. As for the last section leading up to the Forestdale Divide summit, it looks a lot like this. This picture doesn’t quite do it justice, as, given line choice limitations, the trail can be fairly narrow and rutted. Was up there twice this summer - both times on my E-MTB.. I can cover ground much faster on the bike ?

 

[mikehmb]

Yeah, I‘m pretty sure I know the spot where you stopped. Great views from there. As for the last section leading up to the Forestdale Divide summit, it looks a lot like this. This picture doesn’t quite do it justice, as, given line choice limitations, the trail can be fairly narrow and rutted. Was up there twice this summer - both times on my E-MTB.. I can cover ground much faster on the bike ?

Looks like something very similar/close! I just checked, we turned around about 400' or so from the pass. Line choice was what got me, and the squidginess of the outside line with a 7000lb truck.

Anyone know the tipover angle of the Rivian in its Highest suspension setting? lol

 

[Singletracker]

As you can see in my actual Forestdale photo, there are places where there are erosion ruts running down the sides of the trail. It does pretty much force one to straddle those. This can put the vehicle pretty close to the edge. Just need to be careful. Don’t think tipping over is an issue, as long as you don’t go over the edge. In which case, all bets are off ? The Rivian has a pretty low center gravity with most of the weight in the battery pack..

 

[R1Thor]

Looks like something very similar/close! I just checked, we turned around about 400' or so from the pass. Line choice was what got me, and the squidginess of the outside line with a 7000lb truck.

Anyone know the tipover angle of the Rivian in its Highest suspension setting? lol

If you have the telemetry screen up, it'll monitor this for you (pitch and yaw and start lighting up red when you're nearing the limits). SUPER capable. I agree that photos almost never tell the whole story when it comes to off-roading type stuff, but this, at least to me, looks pretty doable, especially with a ground guide or at least if you walk it and come up with a good line plan.

Report back when you give it a whirl!

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