ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGHS

It’s one thing to take a 2011 Land Rover LR4 up a 13,000‑feet Colorado mountain pass as part of an organized, Land Rover Experience instructor‑led group. It's another when you do it with your family as part of a summer vacation, writes Chris Marchand, Executive Vice President, Operations, Jaguar Land Rover North America, LLC.

A year ago we took a group of journalists over the Imogene Pass between Telluride and Ouray to show off the new 2011 LR4, Range Rover and Range Rover Sport. When I was planning a family road‑trip vacation through Colorado with my wife Susan and daughters Natalie, 15, and Christy, 12, a natural overnight stop was Telluride, where Land Rover has a strategic partnership with the Telluride Ski and Golf Resort.

We were talking about things we wanted to do on the trip and both girls said they’d really like to visit an old ghost town. That’s when I remembered Tomboy, the old mining settlement and official ghost town that’s on the Imogene Pass.

What followed was two days of intense, white‑knuckle off‑roading in our Land Rover LR4, traversing the 13,114‑foot‑high pass over the San Juan Mountains, clawing along narrow, loose‑gravel tracks with 200‑to‑300‑foot sheer drops at the side.  Only this time, I alone was the instructor, the driver, and the one responsible for getting us there in one piece.

 

It was pretty scary stuff. The girls had never experienced serious off‑roading before and were a little nervous. At some stages there were only a couple of feet between us and the edge. Remembering the adage that my original Land Rover instructor in England told me, I went as slow as possible and only as fast as necessary.

For me, it only reinforced my long‑held belief that the LR4 is simply the world’s most capable off‑road vehicle, and how its technology – like Terrain Response® and Hill Descent Control (HDC®) – can make you feel safe and confident in your driving abilities while combating any type of terrain.

The whole drive made me rethink what LR4 is all about. We talk about its capability and technology, and here I was putting it into practice. I’ve always had an immense respect for the vehicle, but those two days in the mountains revealed how impressive the vehicle really is and the joy of taking it places that are otherwise pretty much inaccessible.