A friend and I get together a few times a year and opted to meet “halfway” to camp. The “halfway” point was really an additional hour for both of us since I was coming from the Portland, OR area; he was coming from the Salt Lake City, UT area.
The start of my trip was rich in greens and tall trees as the humidity and other waters in the air are dumped from the atmosphere since the Cascade Mountain range stops forward progress. It was interesting to see how drastically the environment changed from lush to dry, both being beautiful in their own right.
This was to be the first long distance trip in the 4Runner, using a new cooler and method of keeping ice, and a longer than normal trip.
I’ve read on a few sub-Reddits that the 4Runner is not really comfortable for long distance trips, loud when traveling down the road, and has crappy gas mileage. I found that it was in fact very comfortable, enough so that I didn’t need to stop half-way. Although I did stop half-way as well as a few others while headed to Idaho….couldn’t stop myself from checking a few roadside places fwiw. I can’t really say if the seat material had a significant impact on performance if I were to compare it to a 4Runner with cloth seats, at least apples to apples. I have driven my Subaru Outback with cloth seats and do believe that the Softex material in the 4Runner is more comfortable, albeit it could also be that the 4Runner is 10 years newer, being a 2023. I was pleasantly surprised with the overall atmosphere in the 4Runner, maintained temp well enough and cockpit layout is great. Everything was easily accessible and intuitive when driving; I did not have to second guess where a dial or button was or had to fiddle with radio or air conditioning. As far as road noise was concerned, it was noisy to a degree. It did not help that the roof rack and rooftop tent made a loud whistling sound when traveling at almost any speed. I believe that this is due in part to the fact that air is being forced through the fairing underneath the tent. I had originally purchased the fairing with a cutout for a light bar and believe that the noise will go away when I put in a light bar or put something like a pool noodle between the roof rack and roof top tent just right behind the fairing. The tires, BFGoodrich All-Terrain T/A KO2’s. Yes they are noisy but not overly so. Obviously they are not road tires; they are all terrain with an aggressive tread. With that in mind, I found them to be good highway tires with exceptional off road capabilities. I will say this though….the whistling from the roof rack and roof top tent was way worse the than tires.
For the past few months, I have used a traditional Igloo cooler, much like the 48 quart Laguna ice chest. It has okay ice retention and certainly did not have thick walls. After a 2 day camping trip, I would end up with very cold water; cold enough to be assured that the food would not spoil but a sad performance. It is worth saying that if the food in the cooler were not properly sealed it would be ruined. After reviewing a few Youtube videos, I ran across one on Playing With Sticks’ YT Channel. This video helped me realize how little I knew when it came to keep a cooler in peak performance.
This video helped teach me nine VERY important lessons, 9 Mistakes EVERY new camper makes with their COOLER. All of which I will discuss in the following list.
- Pre cool the cooler: I’ve never done this before. However, it makes perfect sense that you would want to pre cool it to not waste precious cooling power/energy taking the cooler down to a temp to longer sustain ice. Why start with a warm cooler and lose hours of ice cooling it off.
- 2 Parts Ice to 1 Part Food: Again, something I have not done before. I’ve tried for a 1:1 ratio or more ice than food but plenty of wasted space in the cooler. One of the things that I did with the 2:1 ratio is freeze foods which counts as ice…two birds, one stone.
- Draining: Keep ice melt for as long as possible until you are able to replace it with ice. Water is denser than air and therefore takes longer to warm up.
- Opening excessively: Avoid from opening the cooler excessively by keeping a two cooler system. If you separate out the items which spoil into a cheaper yard sale cooler. The other benefit is that you can consolidate the smaller to larger cooler so that air space is reduced.
- Prep food beforehand: take off excessive packaging, move to resealable bags, and freeze the items that you intend on using later in the trip. Frozen food can be the ice it as a flat as possible for insulation.
- Pre cool all items.
- Use blocks of ice: It lasts longer then ice cubes. I can vouch for this since i had ice blocks left over after the four days. Layer it as follows
- Ice blocks and/or froze food.
- Layer of food
- Layer of ice as thick as the food.
- Layer of food.
- Layer of ice as thick as the food.
- Artificial ice blocks or wet on top of another layer of ice.
- Free roaming ice: perfectly fine to keep it free range. However, it is good to put some in plastic bags for drinking later. I found that this allows you to move bags of ice out of the way to get foods out of the cooler.
- Cooler and heat or sun: Keep the cooler out of the sun or a hot car at all times. While I had a couple of instances where I failed to abide by this, I believe that using the above steps saved my food and ice. Keep in a controlled temp vehicle and in the shade…not in the sun, on top of a picnic table, or on the back of a hitch trailer, if at all possible. I can definitely see how the new cooler helped too.
The new cooler. I did not over this until now because I found it to be a game changer and certainly a welcomed addition to my camping gear. I bought the Lifetime 55 Quart High Performance Polyethylene Cooler in grey. Walmart had a few colors of the Lifetime, two of which were darker in color. Based on my experience with darker colors and sun/heat, I found it beneficial to go with the grey….which is why I have it linked instead of others. The quality of cooler used is night and day different than my original cooler. The latches on it allow me to fill the cooler to the top and close it without having to force it latched. It also has a rubber gasket around the lid so that when it seals I can be assured that it is not letting out the cooler, ice, or water. (It is also satisfying to hear the lid force itself down and items in the cooler shift to accommodate the compaction.)
June 19, 2024
