It snowed yesterday at Blue Canyon up I-80. Since it was such a nice day we decided to go play in the first snow. So 4 of us got in the HCHII and went up the hill to the summit for the first time in the HCHII. We start at 150ft altitude from our house, and stop off just past Nyack Rd at about 6,200ft (about 66 miles). We play in the 2-4" of snow, throw some snowballs and make a mini snowman. We're there for about 45 minutes, then decide to go to Truckee to get some dinner. So we continue up the hill to Donner Summit peaking at 7230ft, and drop down to Truckee at about 6,100ft (about 32 miles from where we were at). We stay for about 2 hours then head back home, back to the Summit, and then all the way back down the mountain.
I started with 27 miles on a fresh tank and mpg was at 43.5. When we hit the Summit it had dropped to about 35mpg. I averaged 55-62 miles per hour going up. I lost 4 or 5 fuel bars going up. Down the backside to Truckee it rose to 37.4mpg. Back up to the Summit it dropped to 36.5mpg. I finished up at home at 47.5mpg with 227 miles on the tank. From Truckee to home I did not lose a single bar from the fuel gauge! I am at 2 or 3 bars above 1/2 tank.
An interesting note, I reset Trip B on the way back about 5 miles down from the Summit (forgot to reset it at the Summit). When I reset Trip B, I was going down a 5-6% grade. I was expecting it to show 150.0mpg. For 2.2 miles it just showed ---.- . When I finally had to drop out of EV mode for a split second is when it finally showed 150.0mpg. So I think it's safe to say when you're in EV mode (iFE pegged at 100mpg) you truly are not using any fuel. I have a picture of Trip B at 57 miles that shows 105.7mpg
... it's a bit blurry - it was on my wife's camera phone. I'll post it as soon as I extract it from the phone.
Aside from the road being as rough as can be from years of snow chain abuse, the ride was very nice and as always, very sceninc. It was so nice to get 47.5mpg for the trip instead of 16-20mpg in the Honda Pilot
Tomorrow we are going up Hwy 50 to Apple Hill.
Finally went to the summit - 7,230 ft, 47.5mpg avg
