routlaw

That can be a nice time of year to be here too and far less crowded parks and campgrounds. As you may have already experienced weather can change in a heartbeat too so be prepared for that.

Darn, I missed the missing wheels on the last row but did account for the missing window. Astute powers of observation @FrankC

Well you wouldn't want to be here right now, AQI is terrible with not much end in sight. On most days you can barely make out the Bridger mountain range let alone all of the others that encircle the valley. Stop in if you do make it out this way.

If that's the case then as someone else said the answer would 174 then.

Thanks John and Mike and Carol for clarifying the issues with usage vs re-charge at cold temps. FWIW I got the idea of lead acid batteries performing at cold temps based upon my own experience. Granted I don't take off in the middle of a Montana winter when its sub zero but on more than one occasion have been caught out in low teens and our batteries did just fine. I was also referring to the storage of them as well. As long as there is NO phantom draw on power a fully charged lead acid wet cell battery is supposed to be good at extreme below zero temps. Not sure you can do this with lithium and AGM's. Regarding Long Way Up, agreed the program was fairly lame other than the magnificent scenery. While they may have been driving prototypes the batteries were anything but though, unless you know something I don't and it certainly did not speak well for that battery technology to my way of thinking. Our area has lots of Tesla's now a few Audi E-vehicles as well but suspect these are all housed in garages with some temp control and easy access to a charging station. Charging stations are few and far between in this neck of the woods, heck even gas stations can be depending on where you're going. Have not heard the Dust to Glory film but thanks

Why, I don't see any parentheses. Granted I'm not a mathematician. This is an assumption I don't understand.

210 3 Ollies = 90 for 30 each 3 windows = 18 for 6 each 5 wheels = 25 for 5 each so 5 + 25 = 30 X 6 = 210

Up until this past month I have stored our Ollie in an open bay but covered shelter which did have plenty of room, but no power. The new owners of this faculty raised rents twice within a year for a total of 60% increase. I told them to take a hike and moved out. We live in Montana and during winter months turn off all switches to power including the solar panels eliminating any phantom power draws. Our 4 lead acid batteries maintain their full charge during the approximate 5 months ± of storage and will normally be 12.84 volts ± a fraction when I pick up. In the meantime we are keeping ours in the driveway at home which is not ideal due to small lots, small driveways in the downtown historical area of our town. I truly envy John Davies setup. There are no HOA codes in the area we live, at least for now, regardless its sort of a PITA to keep even a small RV like the Ollie parked here all summer. Looking at other completely enclosed storage facilities now will raise the price of admission another $15 or $20 per month with no power or temp control. My CAB (cheap a** ba*t*rd) factor starts to kick in. I have also flirted with the idea of hauling ours to the SW for the winter months for storage which would make it much easier to get away on an adventure down there, then bringing back to Montana for the summer to enjoy camping in smoked filled skies. 🥵

And just for the sake of discussion, after making my last post I found this replay (pasted below) to a question on the Battle Born website. Seriously how on earth can someone expect to do fall & winter camping if you can't charge a battery in 25º weather? This past winter my wife and I watched a TV series via the Apple TV+ programming called, Long Road Up, or something along those lines. The actor Ewan McGregor and his buddy were riding battery powered motorcylces from Tierra del Fuego all the way to Los Angeles. Immediately they could not charge their bikes due to the cold weather and worse still the Rivian Trucks that were to be used as sag wagons and support also had serious issues in the cold weather all the way through Argentina and Chile. My lead acid batteries don't give a rats behind what the weather is like and can hold a charge all winter long in Montana. I would love to loose the weight of lead acid, but i just don't see how LI-ION in its current state is the panacea of energy storage. Thanks Hi Bob, thanks for reaching out. At 25° F, a Battle Born battery will no longer accept a charge. This is to preserve the cells in the battery, and the internal BMS will allow a recharge when the temperature is above 32° F. Every single battery that we assemble has an internal BMS. If you’re interested in getting more information, check out our white paper study here. https://battlebornbatteries.com/lead-is-dead-white-paper-study/

Thanks Chukarhunter for this in depth explanation of the differences with batteries, or at least some of them. I understand most of this and should re-read but what I don't understand is why you never used your 4 wet cell acid batteries at all. Granted with lead acid, one can only use approximately 50% of their capacity as I understand things, meaning only 225 of the 450 amp hours available. To the best of my knowledge lead acid batteries are not hamstrung like the AGM's with charging rate and can take a full 100% charge until they top out at 100%. From my experience with them in over 6 years this seems to be the case and once again I have yet to ever even come close to running out of battery power. Please don't misunderstand, not trying to be argumentative on this issue by any means and you make some excellent points regarding AGM vs LI-ION batteries. Aside from the weight difference, and it is substantial I am not convinced at least not yet of LI-ION superiority compared to lead acid at least in this application. Thanks again for the excellent information. @Chukarhunter

Lately I have been using the glass cleaner available from the Glass Doctor which is by far the best glass cleaner I've ever used. Makes windex obsolete by a huge margin. The GD cleaner seems to polish as well as clean the glass, then a coat or two of Rain-X and done. However not sure I've ever noticed much if any difference with a dirty solar panel vs clean. The batteries seem to always be completely charged by mid morning at the latest no matter. As others have stated it is a major PITA to get up there and clean. Have thought about investing in scaffolds but even that only gets one as high as a 6 foot step ladder albeit with a noticeable amount more stability than a ladder alone.

Impressive!

FWIW, I couldn't agree more regarding the implementation of solar. In over six years with our Ollie we have never used a generator ever, and only on a couple of occasions have we stayed at an RV camp with full hookups not because we needed to but simply because that was the only thing available where we were at the time. In fact I just sold my Yamaha Generator earlier in the summer because it was just setting around unused collecting dust for the last 6 years. Batteries now that's another thing. Other than the weight of wet cell units like I have, its just not clear to me what is actually gained by AGM or even Lithium. My understanding is LI-ON does not like either extreme heat or cold, wet cells don't seem to care one way or the other. If my perceptions are wrong please correct me, and help to understand the advantage of LI vs other batteries other than weight. Thanks

Geez, am I out of date and old fashion or what? Still have 4 wet cell 6 volt Trojan T-105's and solar with no complaints. Have never even come close to running out of electricity and only once or twice dipped into the mid 80's percentile of available current left. I don't even take them out of the Ollie for long winter storage here in Montana and they stay fully charged to 12.84 volts ± a fraction even after 5 or more months of storage. This most likely does not help the OP in his decision however.

The Glidecoat system is quite the process and not cheap either. The results seem impressive however.

Thanks John, it does not include electricity to the best of my knowledge and definitely not temp controlled. Normally I assume most storage sheds do not come with electricity. Agreed there would not be tons of extra room but just enough to store a few other items. Doors are 11 foot high so enough clearance for an Ollie.

John at what size shelter are you getting those quotes of $350 per month. Where I live there are enclosed 12x30 storage shelters for $185 per month. For the last 6 years I have rented an open but overhead covered shelter for just barely over $100 per month, but this past year the new owners have increased the prices twice for a total of a near 60% increase in one year. I told them to take a hike and left, but still looking for an appropriate place to store especially during the winter months. I don't have the option of building an onsite storage where we live in the downtown historical area.

Thats odd, we just returned from a trip into the Wind River Range camped at just over 8000 feet with no issues what so ever. Even kept my homemade ice cream frozen solid. However I do have the Dometic 3-way in our Elite II.

@MarylandDave Arches will still be fairly crowded most likely this time of year and it can still be quite hot in the area. Moab is considerably lower in elevation so triple digit or nearly so temps can still be lingering on there. Its highly unlikely you'll be able to get a camp spot in Arches without having registered for one weeks or months ago. Might be worth a try though. However there are numerous BLM campgrounds around the Moab area. Do not arrive on a weekend though, Sunday or Monday night would be much better. Its not clear to me what you would get out of the Colorado Springs diversion to the south unless you plan to travel the backcountry roads to and through UT. If time is constrained I would recommend staying on I-70 right through CO. There is the CO National Monument just off I-70 in western CO, then a short drop (relatively) down to the Moab area off I-70. Further west is the San Rafael Swell also just of the interstate then half an hour or so to the south is Goblin Valley State Park. I could go on and on with the possibilities in southern UT but will keep it brief for now. The point is there are incredible things to see and experience other than the heavily visited national parks. One other thing you need to consider, the front range drive is maddening worse than either Houston or DFW IMHO and worse still there is currently major road construction going on from south of Trinidad right into the southern perimeter of Denver. I just drove this a couple of months ago and traffic even on a Sunday went at a snails pace often setting dead still. Took hours get through. Another reason to just blast right through Denver cutting it in half. Further west in UT most of those Nat Parks will still be quite busy, Zion, Bryce etc, plan ahead now for campgrounds. Kodachrome Basin is just a few miles further down the road from Bryce NP and is a very nice state park campground. Green River also has a nice state park campground (and right off I-70) as well though not much to do there unless you golf or mountain bike. Hope this helps

Agree with Mike and Carol, getting through El Paso is mostly a non event and especially compared to DFW or worse yet Houston which are both a major long drawn out PITA.

Depends on how you view things I suppose. However it is by any measure the most stark example of the 1st World juxtaposed to the 3rd World you're ever likely to find thrown into a mix of industrial wasteland. The first time is a bit of a shock.

Indeed they should.

FWIW I have seen it worse here than today but it still is awful and only going to get worse as the summer wears on. On another note had not realize there was another Oliver owner here in the Bozone, how about that. Congrats.

Having been out of the loop for the last week had not realized the smoke from these fires had reached the east to this extent. That should be a warning to any and all. Looking at todays current fire map and AQI reports my suggestion would be to travel the southern route across the country as SeaDawg mentioned. Yes it will be warmer or in some cases hotter than the northern route although much of the NW have seen record breaking triple digits off and on this summer. NM and AZ have been receiving copious amounts of rain this past month too which helps mitigating clearer air. Safe travels.

Allow me to add some thoughts to the conversation. True, Glacier NP is a not to be missed place but do NOT underestimate John's comment about the conditions out west currently and they are NOT likely to change even through September. You would be well advised to keep checking and paying attention to the wildfires throughout any part of the west before departing on your trip. The AQI in Bozeman, Montana where I live was 163 at the top of the morning and will most likely reach near or above 200 before the day is over. Just 80 miles west of here in Butte where our daughter lives it has been 200 or near so for days. My wife and I were in the Wind River Range of Wyoming this past week enjoying very clear air, deep blue skies and puffy whites punctuated with a few thunderstorms but by Friday afternoon and Saturday morning the smoked had rolled into the area and as of this morning the AQI there is in the 130's or so. None of this is likely to change until some major and drastic change in the weather patterns. Understand too, smoke from wildfires will and do travel hundreds and thousands of mile away. It is not the least uncommon for us living in Montana to have a summer filled with smoke from CA, OR, WA, NV or ID fires. On most days the mountains are completely invisible due to the smokey conditions this summer. I'm not making this up. Not trying to rain on your parade by any means and with some luck hopefully things will clear up before your departure and if they do understand there are campgrounds within Glacier that are all first come first serve and those include Apgar and Avalanche Lake on the west side. Two Medicine and Swiftcurrent on the east side are a mixture of RSVP's and FCFS however both of these are fairly remote and require some time to get into. The roads are windy with lots of elevation changes and take some time to negotiate. Plan ahead! This will be nothing like driving around the eastern part of the US. On a more positive note I am finding lots of USFS and BLM campgrounds that do not take reservations and are all on a FCFS basis and better still do not fill up even on the weekends. IOW's there are still plenty of camping sites to be had out west even without reservations if you know where to look. However as John has implied the more popular national parks, such as YNP, Glacier, Grand Tetons are more likely to be booked. This year GTNP went to the Advanced Reservation System exclusively meaning there are no walk-ins or FCFS sites throughout. YNP does have some campgrounds on FCFS basis but most are RSVP. The Ultimate Public Campground app is a must but I also use the Free Roam app which shows hundreds and thousands of dispersed or boon docking sits that are free. Allstays is worth having as well but it will include RV parks and the like, sort of a jack of all trades but not an expert at anything. Let us know if you have more questions. Be glad to help if possible.