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Learning the hard way??
So, today, we left Durango, Colorado, en route to the Canyon De ChellyChelly in AZ on our way to Williams, AZ.
We have read a lot about the therCanyon De Chelly and decided it would be worth a stop-over for a couple of days.
There are no RV parks and there are all of 2 campgrounds. 1 of them has bad reviews. Thge The other one, Cottonwood Campground, inside the monument, has good reviews but it is a „first come, first served“ park.
With this being the Labor Day weekend, we figured the campground would be full. Not so. When we called ahead, they said they had many sites available and when we arrived, we found out that we were the 2nd RV in a 90 lot campground!
Of course, finding a spot for Olivia with an overall length of 70 feet was a somewhat different story. But we found a pull-through in loop 1 just long enough for us. Did I mention that we had to by-pass the site and then back in to it?
Anyway, for almost most other RV’s RV‘ersthere are plenty of long and good sites in this park.
Now, back to the beginning. We left Durango late morning and after looking at the available routing, we decided to take the middle route from Durango to Ship Rock to Red Rock to Lukachukai to Tsaile to Chinle. Along 140 to 70 to 64 to Indian Service Route 13 to 12 to 64.
According to the GPS routing GPS, this should have been a 3 hours trip. In the end, it was more like 5 hours because we were going through the mountains.
Did I mention mountains?
Well, we quickly went from about 5,000 feet to about 9,000 feet. Like riding an elevator in 15 minutes.
Going-up is easy. You start to shift down to maintain speed. I got all the way down to 2nd gear.
Eventually, the hard truth was revealed because what goes up must come down.
We faced a sign on the side of the road which proclaimed „14%“ … Wnhat the hell? 14%? Never seen this before … Well, 14% it was and not only that. It was divied-up into S-curves going down the mountain.
Now, remember, that Olivia is a 45ft Prevost XLII towing a 25ft trailer!
For the first time, ever, the overheating warning light came on. So we pulled off of the road and sat for about 25-30 minutes to let her cool down.
Then, the brakes sent greetings by sending stink our way … Never had smelled our brakes before.
So, we looked for a place to pull over to let the brakes etc. cool down.
Eventually, we made it down the mountain and back onto regular roads.
All ended-up being well.
We are now safely set-up in the campground on our 5th adult beverage.
Now, having said all this, I also want to say that we saw scenery and sights that you would not see, if you would follow the normal route. That is to say, above and or around the bottom of Canyon De Chelly.
We choose to take the off the beaten path route right smack through the middle of the park (monument).
We love to take such routes and will always select them in favor of highways.
Anyways, I should say this route would have been a lot easier if not for having the 25ft stacker trailer and as far as the campground at Canyon de Chelly is concerned, I was told that they are never full and there are many pull-in and back-in sites that are suitable for parking a Prevost.
Check out the website for Canyon De Chelly. It is worth a visit!!!
Cheers,
and feeling great after a change of underwear …
Ronald
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65 Replies
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Did you add the campground and scenic route to the PC map?
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Thanks Ronald great information.
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Ronald, You have a way of making a trip interesting for sure. I’ll bet it was beautiful though. Glad you got down safe and sound and thanks for sharing!
Harry
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Good post Ronald, only 5 beverages.
Lots of folks get into trouble downhill, sounds like you had your hands full. At least if your pulling a toad, you can unhook and that will help. Some people think a jake or retarder will prevent the use of the brake petal when geared down only to learn a lesson. I can attest my bus at near gross weight of 54K, the jake will not hold it on 7% grades regardless of gear selected.
Have fun in Williams, we did it in July..
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We will be in Williams on 9/10 and looking forward to the train ride to the Grand Canyon. Should be good.
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Sep 9 to Sep 22 and will be staying at the Grand Canyon Railway RV Park. It is a great park, all paved, fairly new AND the local brewery is literally right across the street. No need to drive. You can crawl home.
We were there for a couple of weeks last year and are coming back for a 6-1/2 days oars rafting trip on the Colorado River. Sep 9 to 15. We will be driving to the park, stay 1 night at the lodge and then hike down into the canyon for about 10 hours to get to the rafts.
Cheers,
Ronald
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This was an exciting trip, for sure. What I found interesting is that the entire trip through the mountains on „Indian Service Roads“ (being inside the Navajo Nation) is on a 2 lane, blacktop road. There were plenty of cars going in either direction. We were even passed by a park ranger/police car. They did not bother to question our sanity so we figured all is good.
I got a good upper body workout because the roads up into the mountains and especially back down on the other side are very curvy.
At times, I was going barely 10 MPH on the upside.
On the downside, it could have been anything … 🙂
As long as you are comfortable with driving and handling your bus, the trip is doable. Even more so, if you do not tow anything.
You will get to see great landscapes (Shiprock, for instance). But there will also be a few scary moments …
We have done quite a few mountain passes, already, up to about 14,000 feet. Other than going very slow (and making new friends following behind us) it never was an issue and the bus did extremely well.
This pass was not quite as high but STEEP.
🙂
Ronald
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In extreme downhills it is unlikely a Jake or retarder is going to replace the brakes.
The only safe way down is to pick a target speed, usually the uphill speed, and select the gear manually for that speed. Do not be intimidated by traffic behind you.
If your speed gets up to your target speed apply the service brakes fairly hard to drop down to a speed near the bottom of the range and release the brakes so they can cool, allowing the Jake or retarder to apply some braking force. Do not keep your foot on the brakes and do not pump the brakes.
Do not hesitate to pull over to allow the brakes to cool and traffic to pass if necessary. Steep downhill runs require a lot of anticipation and driver involvement and selecting a gear whose top speed at 2100 RPM is your target speed you will get the best performance from the supplemental braking, but you must avoid over revving the engine so you need to be vigilant.
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Ronald, we will be there with you for a couple of nights. I’ll find Olivia as she is hard to miss.
We plan on using the great kennel facilities for our dog while we take the train trip into the canyon.
Thanks for the drink/eats recommendation. Maybe we can coordinate a visit.
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Les, sounds like you have used the kennel before. We did, too, a year ago when we took the same train ride out to the canyon.
We boarded Bruno for 1 night and he must have had a blast because he always pulled us towards the kennel entrance door when we walked past.
🙂
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Jon’s method is tried and true. Use everything you got, transmissions, retarder/jake, and stab breaking. Can’t use just one as something will overheat. Retarder (don’t confuse it with a jake/exhaust brake) and low gear will both heat the transmission so throwing in stab breaking will help allow the transmission to cool a little.
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Mstruk and I hoisted a few there in July ourselves, great place.
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Is the road construction all done in Williams yet? We had to detour when we stayed there twice earlier in the summer….
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Truk, I am glad you weighed in on the jake brake effectiveness. Mine is very effective on any grade 7% or less. Brake usage goes way up beyond that.
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I have yet to see a grade where the Jake did not give me all the braking needed. Going down the 7% grade north of RMR going to Capitan, I have to feather the throttle to release the Jake or the coach slows down too much. We are a bit lighter at 52,000, but now we are towing a pickup.
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