Using ALL Those Buttons

So I headed out to the White Mountains to see the Bristlecone Pines. This time I'm headed directly for the Upper Grove which is along enough of a dirt track to stop my M3 - believe me I've tried. One of the reasons I knew I needed to go back to a 4x4.

The usual route up their from the town of Bishop is to go roughly 15 miles south then 15 miles east on the highway then 15 miles north, alot of it on dirt roads. Then I found another option - going directly east for about 15 miles. The difference is that the climb is very steep and on a dirt road - Awesome!

So I get to use all of the buttons on my new truck...

The green icon means 4x4, yes it seems like everyone has that these days. "4 Lo" - is an extra low gearbox for pulling up steep hills or heavy engine breaking, and is the big differentiator between car-like AWDs and 'real' 4x4s and the main reason I went for a heavier truck rather than one of those modern mall-terrain vehicles. Below that is the diff-lock on icon, meaning there should be less wheel spin. "VSC OFF" means Vehicle Stability Control Off - ie. you're in charge now. The "D" for those in the UK means 'go forwards and wake me up when we get there' in American ;-)).

The start of the trail was quite innocuous, although it did include a few surprise river (well stream) crossings. Then I passed a National Forest sign requiring "4 Lo" and "High Clearance" for the second half. It suddenly got really steep, with big drops to the side - well the route description did say "Exhilarating". It certainly was. I wasn't even stopping to take a photo.

At the top of the very steepest part the view was superb. That's the valley below, and you can just see the trail near the left edge by the dark hill. Tough to show just how steep it is in a photo (from above, anyway).

I have to say I was pretty impressed with the 4Runner, the trail was similar to some of the Land Rover driving we'd been doing in Costa Rica. I'd say it handled the trail just as well, and with more comfort too. It will be interesting to see how well the engine braking compares on the downhills. (I went home the easy way as it was dark.)

By the way there is another button I haven't mention - more to come later. Just a hint - It's why I bought a new(ish) 4Runner and finally accepted an Automatic.