Rocky Mountain National Park Trail Ridge Road

[neverdone]

My wife and I drove through Rocky Mountain National Park on Trail Ridge road today. From Loveland to Grand Lake.

The snow bank is about 15 feet.

You can charge at Estes Park (by the Library) and at Grand Lake (by the dock).
Elevation at the Alpine visitor center is 11796 feet.

We used lots of power going from 5000 to 11,000 feet elevation.

And very little energy going back downhill. You can see the current trip of 61 miles where we used just 58Wh/mile.

Comparing cool cars.

I had some range anxiety so charged to 100% before we left this morning. Used about 25% charge from Loveland to Estes Park. We charged at a public charger (J1772) at the Estes Park library while we had breakfast at a nearby restaurant. Cost is $1 per hour. We left Estes Park at about 85%. Down to about 50% at the Alpine Visitors Center. Downhill to Grand Lake town so charge was about 55%. We were the first ones to use the new ChargePoint charger at Grand Lake. We met the town manager who was excited that someone was actually using their new charger. Just a 30A 240V charger so is fairly slow. Our charge level never went below 50% so I really had no need to worry.

 

[DiveDeep]

My wife and I drove through Rocky Mountain National Park on Trail Ridge road today. From Loveland to Grand Lake.
View attachment 179657 The snow bank is about 15 feet.
View attachment 179658
You can charge at Estes Park (by the Library) and at Grand Lake (by the dock).
Elevation at the Alpine visitor center is 11796 feet.
View attachment 179660
We used lots of power going from 5000 to 11,000 feet elevation.
View attachment 179661
And very little energy going back downhill. You can see the current trip of 61 miles where we used just 58Wh/mile.
View attachment 179662
Comparing cool cars.
View attachment 179663
I had some range anxiety so charged to 100% before we left this morning. Used about 25% charge from Loveland to Estes Park. We charged at a public charger (J1772) at the Estes Park library while we had breakfast at a nearby restaurant. Cost is $1 per hour. We left Estes Park at about 85%. Down to about 50% at the Alpine Visitors Center. Downhill to Grand Lake town so charge was about 55%. We were the first ones to use the new ChargePoint charger at Grand Lake. We met the town manager who was excited that someone was actually using their new charger. Just a 30A 240V charger so is fairly slow. Our charge level never went below 50% so I really had no need to worry.

Thanks so much for your nice write up! This gives the likes of us who live in the Rockies a better feel for the price of altitude gain and how the regen will function to "give back" a portion of that energy.
I live between Provo, UT and Salt Lake City.. Fairly frequently we drive up to the Park City area and to Cabin Property nearby.. Total climb there is only in the 4000' range, so nothing like Estes Park to the Alpine Visitor Ctr in RMNP.

It might be nice if you could remind the rest of us of the altitudes at the various landmarks you visited... Loveland, Estes Park, and Grand Lake..

 

[Msamm]

Thank you for this! It was very hard to find any tesla trip stats for going through Rocky Mountain national park. We’re at estes park now charging at the nee super charger.
Thanks again

 

[AudreyHTX1]

Today our Tesla made it all the way up on Trail Ridge Road above 12,000 feet. We drove to the Alpine Visitor Center and then returned to Estes Park. Of course the drive was effortless as usual - steep grades and turns are nothing to this Model X.

We were around 58% at our cabin near Estes Park (~7700 ft) and I checked the navigation which calculated that we should reach the Alpine visitor center at around 39%- 41%. And the return to Estes Park would be essentially “free” gaining 2% predicted.

However while climbing up the arrival state of charge estimate kept dropping, eventually to 32% when we reached Rainbow Lookout. At that point the navigation hiccuped and canceled the route - I think because we were out of cell range. So we just kept an eye on the current state of charge, and when we got to the Alpine Visitor Center we were at 45% - higher even than the original estimate. And I think we gained 3% on the return.

Here is our car “at the top of the world” near the Rock Cut Lookout area taken from the Tundra Communities Trail.