Rivian: Golden to Great Sand Dunes

Trip to Southern Colorado to hike around Great Sand Dunes National Park and drive Medano Pass in the R1T.

The Plan:

• Spend a couple nights camping at Great Sand Dunes National Park
• Drive up and over Medano Pass (difficult 4x4 road)
• Head back to golden

Medano Pass is a sandy 4x4 road that connects GSDNP to the east side of the Sangre de Criso mountains. With a few days of camping and driving locally and a sandy pass, we weren't too sure how much battery we would use so we wanted to arrive at the national park with a high state-of-charge.

Charging Details:

We drove to Salida early in the morning and plugged in to a level 2 charger while working at a coworking space in town.

• Golden -> Salida: 48% battery
• Charging in Salida to 100%

Early in the afternoon we drove down to Alamosa and plugged in to the fast charger at the visitor center. This would be out final charging opportunity before going to the national park.

• Arrived in alamosa with 67%
• Half hour of charging in Alamosa to 92%
• Arrived at campsite with 81%

While camping we charged electronics, cooked on our induction cooktop, accessed our truck frequently; this didn't consume much but maybe a few percent. We also drove through the sandy parts of Medano Pass, helped some stuck tourists in a 2WD vehicle, and drove up to hike to Zapata Falls. By the time we were leaving Sunday morning we were at 60%.

• Great sand dunes to the top of the pass: 15% consumed, at 45% battery
• Bottom of pass: 48% battery
• Back to Salida with 25% battery

In Salida we plugged in to the Rivian fast chargers and grabbed some lunch.

• Left Salida with 66% battery
• Arrived home with 26% battery

Compromises

What compromises did we make to limit our time spent charging?

• We worked in Salida while charging, which is convenient, but not available to everyone. It would have taken about 30-40 minutes to charge on the fast charger the equivalent of what we charged while working for the day (since the charging was up to 100%).
• We ate lunch while charging on the way home in Salida. We charged higher than necessary, but a buffer is nice for longer drives. Fortunately there are a lot of good restaurants within walking distance of the chargers in Salida