mhiscox
Expedition Leader
The Northwest weather been spectacular in recent weeks, with even the Oregon Coast having an unusual amount of sun. So I drove the XV-JP out this weekend to Sunset Beach, north of Seaside, Oregon, one of the relatively few places where vehicles are allowed to drive on the beach year-round (excepting a couple of dedicated less-than-tranquil OHV areas).
It was great, with few people compared to the summer, and a clear blue sky. Windy, though. (Duh.)
The reason to post up about this trip is that it was the first test of putting the tent up without attaching the bottom edge to the cabin. It's not hard to put the tent up in full batten-down-the-hatches mode, which involves attaching about twenty snaps which are backed up by wide, grippy Velcro strips all around the bottom; there are also full flaps around the outside perimeter to keep all the rain flowing down the outer cabin walls. When put up as designed, it takes three or four minutes and is very weather tight.
Yesterday's experiment was to see how it worked to just raise the roof, zip the panels together and throw the flaps over the edge, spending less than a minute on it. The bottom line is that it worked very well. Just that quick, simple effort was enough to keep out all of the flies, sand and wind.
Faithful readers will note that the tent isn't as taut and tidy as it usually is, but it didn't look too shoddy, and given how quick it is to do, I expect to take this approach a lot in the future.
It probably won't surprise anyone that the Jeep worked great in this application. Got there, opened the windows up, fixed some lunch, sat out in the Pico chair using the Jeep as a windblock, took a nice nap on the sofa, sat out some more, drove a ways up and down the beach. A really nice day.
BTW, the orange Maxtraxs don't live on the hood. I just set them there to have them out of the way, but in a spot where I couldn't drive off without them. They go on the roof forward of the roof rack, but I haven't got the mounts made yet.
BTW II: One of the people who came up to look at the truck was a guy who congratulated me on the choice of the DuraTracs. Turned out he runs a tire store and has put DuraTracs on four of his vehicles. He said he thought they were the best tire ever for this sort of thing, and while I don't have enough experience to know if he's right, they continue to impress me. They worked well on the sand, but the best thing is that you don't seem to give up anything in pavement performance to run a pretty aggressive all-terrain.
It was great, with few people compared to the summer, and a clear blue sky. Windy, though. (Duh.)
The reason to post up about this trip is that it was the first test of putting the tent up without attaching the bottom edge to the cabin. It's not hard to put the tent up in full batten-down-the-hatches mode, which involves attaching about twenty snaps which are backed up by wide, grippy Velcro strips all around the bottom; there are also full flaps around the outside perimeter to keep all the rain flowing down the outer cabin walls. When put up as designed, it takes three or four minutes and is very weather tight.
Yesterday's experiment was to see how it worked to just raise the roof, zip the panels together and throw the flaps over the edge, spending less than a minute on it. The bottom line is that it worked very well. Just that quick, simple effort was enough to keep out all of the flies, sand and wind.
Faithful readers will note that the tent isn't as taut and tidy as it usually is, but it didn't look too shoddy, and given how quick it is to do, I expect to take this approach a lot in the future.
It probably won't surprise anyone that the Jeep worked great in this application. Got there, opened the windows up, fixed some lunch, sat out in the Pico chair using the Jeep as a windblock, took a nice nap on the sofa, sat out some more, drove a ways up and down the beach. A really nice day.
BTW, the orange Maxtraxs don't live on the hood. I just set them there to have them out of the way, but in a spot where I couldn't drive off without them. They go on the roof forward of the roof rack, but I haven't got the mounts made yet.
BTW II: One of the people who came up to look at the truck was a guy who congratulated me on the choice of the DuraTracs. Turned out he runs a tire store and has put DuraTracs on four of his vehicles. He said he thought they were the best tire ever for this sort of thing, and while I don't have enough experience to know if he's right, they continue to impress me. They worked well on the sand, but the best thing is that you don't seem to give up anything in pavement performance to run a pretty aggressive all-terrain.
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