WARNING: Road tripping through the Canadian Rockies in winter behind the wheel of anything less competent than a Jeep Grand Cherokee could be hazardous to your health. And given the freakish nature of mountain weather, it could also get you into some big trouble.
For the uninitiated, a winter excursion through this region can turn from a leisurely scenic cruise to blizzarding nightmare in mere minutes. Snow accumulates faster than the national debt and visibility becomes a myopic tunnel that messes with your depth perception as the highway blurs before your eyes. No less than your undivided concentration and complete confidence in your vehicle is required.
Police check-points strategically located along the Trans-Canada Highway, the main artery between the west coast of British Columbia and the Alberta foothills, ensure that, without the proper vehicle and/or ice and snow treads underfoot, you’ll likely be turned back from whence you came. In these situations, piloting a Grand Cherokee is like carrying an immunity card that gets you waved through from a member of the RCMP.
To examine the full measure of the GC requires driving it in the kind of difficult terrain for which it was intended and that includes snow and lots of it. For that you head to the hills.
But Mother Nature isn’t always willing to cooperate, as evidenced by a recent east-to-west pass along the Trans-Canada. She was playing a practical joke by withholding the white, fluffy stuff, leaving all but the highest mountain sections in a bare and bone-dry state. However, the benign conditions provided plenty of opportunity to examine the GC’s gentile side. The base-model Laredo loaner came with dual-zone climate control, heated outside mirrors and a nothing-fancy six-speaker audio system. There were a few select extras on board including a navigation system, power driver’s seat and a satellite radio that worked flawlessly except when travelling beneath the half-dozen or so protective concrete avalanche “sheds” located along the route.
Also along for the ride was the Loredo’s standard 290-horsepower 3.6-litre V6 that operates with a five-speed automatic transmission plus Jeep’s single-range four-wheel-drive system. This version (a dual-range unit comes on up-level GC’s) is priced at close to $40,000, including destination charges.
Unless some heavy-duty trailer towing or extra quick sprints to 100 km/h (and beyond) are necessary, the V6 works just fine. At 13.0 l/100 km in the city and 8.8 on the highway, it achieves better fuel economy than the previous 210-horsepower V6, and it’s way smoother and quieter while also a livelier performer. The V6 is obviously no match for the available 360-horsepower “Hemi” V8 or the outlandish 470-horsepower SRT8 in straight-line sprints, but out in the real world the extra dollars needed to acquire either model might not be worth it.
Ma Nature served up her favourite raw fury dish on the return west-to-east leg, especially while approaching the highway’s snow-bound Rogers Pass summit. Around here, the only vehicles still moving were convoys of chained-up transport trucks and one lone ice- and grit-encrusted Grand Cherokee. Over the long, upward climb in blanket-thick snow, the GC seemed in its element, scooting past the big rigs without breaking a sweat or transmitting so much as a hint of traction loss, turning what could have been a white-knuckle, high-drama drive into an enjoyable day on the road.
