Well, if this is something you will be doing frequently, one pop of $700 would be way less than two (three?) plane tickets and dog boarding. Alternatively, the boxes are big and difficult to store. We have ours hanging from the garage on a pulley system so it's out of the way. I would say with two people, you could put the rack and the box on in less than 10 minutes.

I have not put the box on the HCHII yet, but we did a week long trip in Yellowstone with it last summer on the Protoge. With the Evolution, you can easily get in the box from both sides which makes organization much easier. If there is a chance you'll ever be camping in bear country, it's nice to have easy access to the trunk (which reminds me, I never posted pictures of the bear paws on the HCH window did I?).

We got very good mileage on that trip--38mpg in Yellowstone with a huge silver sarcaphogus on the roof in the Protoge (31mpg EPA highway). I am looking forward to trying the box on the HCH, but so far we've only done weekend trips where it hasn't been needed.

Commuter car, grocery getter, and summer road tripper--average 10k miles per year.


Winter road trips and ski trips, bad weather commuter and my wife's "daily" driver--expected average 4k miles per year.