The cold weather camping experiement.

[jjswan33]

The setup. I was in the Sierra Nevada mountains. I was in San Diego earlier and went through Barstow and Inyokern to charge at the RAN stations. Went up into the mountains to camp.

Arrived around 7:00pm temp was around 32F at this time. I had 49% SOC or 135 miles
Dipped down to the low 20s overnight. Outlets on, camp mode ’always on’ on, running my Icego cooler/fridge and a standard electric blanket to keep warm in the tent.
After 12 hours I used about 1.5% SOC down to 47% or 131 miles.

Quite happy with those results, next to try using my 400W space heater and colder temps.

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[COdogman]

You forgot to mention you also had a 4 legged heater in your tent!

 

[SeaGeo]

Thanks for this, I was recently wondering about that as well.

 

[Jabbahop]

The setup. I was in the Sierra Nevada mountains. I was in San Diego earlier and went through Barstow and Inyokern to charge at the RAN stations. Went up into the mountains to camp.

Arrived around 7:00pm temp was around 32F at this time. I had 49% SOC or 135 miles
Dipped down to the low 20s overnight. Outlets on, camp mode ’always on’ on, running my Icego cooler/fridge and a standard electric blanket to keep warm in the tent.
After 12 hours I used about 1.5% SOC down to 47% or 131 miles.

Quite happy with those results, next to try using my 400W space heater and colder temps.

thank you for passing along your experience. Looking forward to our first outing in a couple of weeks.

 

[zipzag]

You forgot to mention you also had a 4 legged heater in your tent!

An enlightened individual would respect the dogs Rivian ownership.

 

[PowerBugs]

The setup. I was in the Sierra Nevada mountains. I was in San Diego earlier and went through Barstow and Inyokern to charge at the RAN stations. Went up into the mountains to camp.

Arrived around 7:00pm temp was around 32F at this time. I had 49% SOC or 135 miles
Dipped down to the low 20s overnight. Outlets on, camp mode ’always on’ on, running my Icego cooler/fridge and a standard electric blanket to keep warm in the tent.
After 12 hours I used about 1.5% SOC down to 47% or 131 miles.

Quite happy with those results, next to try using my 400W space heater and colder temps.

love that area (Sierra-Nevada) and your report (and pics). Wish there’s an easy way to get there on winter from the Bay Area . I also wish I could say with my SOC. With gear guard on and nothing else, I lose about 5-10% per day just being park at the driveway. I might turn it off just to compare.
Did you get the tent from Rivian?
I like the look of the new Thule RTT but they don’t have Rivian support/adapters.

 

[jjswan33]

love that area (Sierra-Nevada) and your report (and pics). Wish there’s an easy way to get there on winter from the Bay Area . I also wish I could say with my SOC. With gear guard on and nothing else, I lose about 5-10% per day just being park at the driveway. I might turn it off just to compare.
Did you get the tent from Rivian?
I like the look of the new Thule RTT but they don’t have Rivian support/adapters.

No it’s not a Rivian tent. I have the iKamper X-Cover 2.0 Mini.

It fits the Rivian cross bars out of the box. I believe their Skycamp 3.0 mini would also fit right out of the box.

 

[R1Sky Business]

The setup. I was in the Sierra Nevada mountains. I was in San Diego earlier and went through Barstow and Inyokern to charge at the RAN stations. Went up into the mountains to camp.

Arrived around 7:00pm temp was around 32F at this time. I had 49% SOC or 135 miles
Dipped down to the low 20s overnight. Outlets on, camp mode ’always on’ on, running my Icego cooler/fridge and a standard electric blanket to keep warm in the tent.
After 12 hours I used about 1.5% SOC down to 47% or 131 miles.

Quite happy with those results, next to try using my 400W space heater and colder temps.

Pretty good results ?

 

[joelster]

So... How do you get the dog into the tent? This is the thing that keeps me from a roof top tent...

 

[moosehead]

Great pics as always JJ.

 

[jjswan33]

So... How do you get the dog into the tent? This is the thing that keeps me from a roof top tent...

Yeah I had the same concern. I often put a picnic table next to it so he can jump in or I have a couple of dry boxes I can stack and he will jump in. Usually I just lift him in and out which may not be for everyone depending on the dog.

 

[joelster]

Yeah I had the same concern. I often put a picnic table next to it so he can jump in or I have a couple of dry boxes I can stack and he will jump in. Usually I just lift him in and out which may not be for everyone depending on the dog.

Hmmm... Mine is an eighty pound idiot, god love him.

 

[jjswan33]

To follow up. On my last night on my way back to Oregon I stopped to camp east of Eureka. So as promised I used my space heater instead of the electric blanket. It wasn’t quite as cold, low around 32F.

Bottom line is I used about 5% SOC in 12 hours. Probably could be less if my tent was better insulated.

 

[RoadTripFan]

THANK YOU for this! I am planning on doing some winter camping as well with mine and so was very curious as to the braver souls on here who would go first and hear what their experiences were. My current biggest setback is the backorder of the crossbars (I bought my R1T from a dealer that had purchased one in advance and they did NOT order the crossbars!!!)

 

[Dark-Fx]

So... How do you get the dog into the tent? This is the thing that keeps me from a roof top tent...

Have the ladder extended out and let the dog practice at an increasingly vertical angle. Dogs are capable of climbing ladders but they'd never know it.

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