Owning a Jeep® brand vehicle isn’t always about blazing a trail across the desert or winding your way through the boulders and trees of a forest trail. Sometimes it’s just about getting you home when no other vehicle can do the deed. Just ask 2000 Jeep® Wrangler owner Michael. Not too long ago he was moving back to Minneapolis from Seattle with a fully-loaded 2,999 pound GVW trailer, tagging along for the ride, when winter weather began rearing its head in the higher elevations of his journey. We’ll let him take it from here.
“I own a 2000 Jeep Wrangler Sport and hooked it up to an 8′ x 5′ enclosed trailer. The trailer itself is already about 1,500 to 1,700 lbs, its official GVW is 2,999 lbs.”
“Now, this is not a story of getting off the beaten path, but just a trip out west across the interstate and back again, pulling a loaded trailer that worked my 2000 Wrangler. In Aug ’08, I got a job in Seattle. Being only a contract position, I packed what I needed and headed west. The trailer was fully loaded, packed full. It had to be over 2,000 lbs, I could feel the weight and there were no quick stops with it either.”
“From Minneapolis, my Dad and I made the trip out I-94 through North Dakota and into Montana, picking up I-90 the rest of the way to Seattle. Going out in the summer was a fairly easy drive. I used 2nd gear to climb into the mountains and 3rd to hold the trailer back as we came back down. It was probably, the most work the 4.0-liter engine and the five speed had ever seen, but the Jeep [brand vehicle] didn’t mind.”
“Now, coming from Seattle at the end of Oct ’09 and going to Minneapolis, things got a bit more interesting. That late in the year, the higher elevations were getting snow in some places and the day my friend and I left, a storm was moving in. It had just started to rain and the winds were picking up. By the time we got into Snoqualmie Pass, the north wind was buffeting the side of the Jeep [vehicle] and trailer like it was a sail. The Wrangler didn’t have any issues, but I did have a few instances where I almost couldn’t keep it on the road. The wind was pushing us sideways at times, so we stopped for the night. The next day, it was a fairly nice day, but it had gotten cold. By about mid-day coming into Spokane, we had caught up to the storm from the night before.”
“As we started to climb towards the mountains in Montana, we would get rain and then snow and back to rain. There would be spots in valleys were it would be lightly raining but as you looked up the mountains, you could see where it would start to snow. The worst point (and this was not because the Jeep® brand vehicle couldn’t handle it) was that it was hard to see. For about 30 minutes we hit white out conditions due to heavy snowfall. I could barely see 100 feet in front of the Wrangler. The combination of climbing into the higher elevations and the snow started to make things tricky, but the Wrangler kept going straight as an arrow. Even pulling the loaded trailer through snow-and-ice covered Homestake Pass at 6,000 feet-plus elevation to cross the Continental Divide.”
“Through all the high winds, the mix of rain, snow and some ice, climbing through the mountains and down again absolutely nothing slowed down my Jeep® brand vehicle. I hope I never have to make that trip again in winter, but if I do, I want a Jeep® brand vehicle to do it in.”
“I wish I had pictures of the trip back to show what we went through, but we were in a hurry. My father had been diagnosed with lung cancer and I was coming back home to be with him.”
Michael, we’re glad to hear that your Wrangler got you where you needed to go safely. Stories like these are exactly why we work hard to build the toughest vehicles on the planet. Our best wishes to you and your family.