Colorado Camping With an Electric Vehicle

Sum­mer months are final­ly here and many Col­oradans are plan­ning their next sweet camp­ing trip. While many of our favorite “hid­den” gems may feel remote and far, a sur­pris­ing num­ber of camp­ing areas are well with­in reach of an elec­tric vehicle’s range. Even more sur­pris­ing, is where one can find charg­ing infra­struc­ture in our remote moun­tain regions. Decid­ing to make the next camp­ing trip with an EV can pro­vide a lot of unique oppor­tu­ni­ties that are not avail­able with gas counterparts.

As of this writ­ing, the aver­age EV for sale in Col­orado has a range of 250–300 miles EPA esti­mat­ed. Range of an EV, like a gas car, isn’t always going to hit the EPA rat­ed esti­mates. Speed, for instance, is one of the great­est hits on an EV’s effi­cien­cy. That being said, when hit­ting the back road for an epic camp­ing spot, speed is often much low­er than what hap­pens on I70. What that means for an EV is bet­ter effi­cien­cy and thus bet­ter range. Get­ting out to Syl­van Lake, or run­ning through Kebler Pass to Crest­ed Butte on the back pass­es gives you more miles per kilo­watt than stick­ing to the high­way. I often run into very sur­prised peo­ple when they see me pull up to Mead­ow Lake on the Flat­tops with my EV; no charg­ing or gas for miles around but I have no range anxiety.

Anoth­er alle­vi­a­tion to camp­ing in the wilder­ness with an EV is the con­sis­tent and incred­i­ble growth of charg­ing infra­struc­ture. Thanks to the efforts of the Col­orado Ener­gy Office, many small com­mu­ni­ties have tak­en advan­tage of get­ting DC fast charg­ing sta­tions when there isn’t even a gas sta­tion in town. A great exam­ple of this is Red­stone. No gas sta­tions for near­ly 70 miles, yet an EV can get a fast charge before hit­ting up Crys­tal Mill or cruis­ing McClure Pass on the West Elk Scenic loop. Want to pic­nic at Tay­lor Reser­voir in-between Bue­na Vista and Crest­ed Butte? No prob­lem, plug in at the free Lev­el 2 charg­er at the mari­na! Find­ing a dis­persed site in the San Juans? Ouray and Lake City have DCFC.

Yet more options is the oppor­tu­ni­ty to get a charge while camp­ing at a state park. Rifle Falls State park has elec­tri­cal hook-ups for RV’s; many elec­tric vehi­cles come with mobile charg­ing equip­ment that can be plugged into these hookups. Head down to Ridg­way State Park and after a night of camp­ing, wake up to a full charge to extend your adven­tures in South­west Col­orado. Many KOA camp­sites, for a small fee, will allow EV own­ers to plug in and car camp.

Which brings me to my next point: car camp­ing. Many EV’s such as Riv­ian and Tes­la have soft­ware fea­tures that allow you to car camp com­fort­ably. Regard­less of the out­side tem­per­a­ture, car camp mode allows many EV’s to inter­nal­ly run the HVAC sys­tems while sip­ping pow­er from the bat­tery, so even a dis­persed camp­ing trip can remain com­fort­able. The Ford F150 Light­ning can deliv­er 9,000 watts of pow­er in 110v and 220v out­lets in the bed and frunk, which can pow­er ket­tles and elec­tric stoves.

There are a lot of regions in Col­orado that make the per­fect sum­mer get­away with the chance to unwind and unplug from every day life. And with an EV, those get­aways can be reached well with­in the range of almost every EV on the mar­ket today and get a charge in some of the most remote com­mu­ni­ties. With silent dri­ve­trains, no exhaust, and no oil spills, our back coun­try roads and forests can be explored with lim­it­ed impact to the envi­ron­ment and fel­low campers. Start­ing July 1st, new EV incen­tives from the state office will make a wider range of EV’s mod­els more afford­able for more Col­oradans. Con­sid­er your next camp­ing trip in an elec­tric vehi­cle and find how sur­pris­ing­ly easy and com­fort­able the expe­ri­ence can be!

Writ­ten by Ben West­by, Vol­un­teer EV Coach