I finally got the cross bars to put my Yakima rack on and we took the HCH up to Copper Mountain on Sunday. It was the first time that I've driven th car in the mountains and the first time with a ski rack. On the way up, we drove the front way (I-25 north to Denver and then I-70) and on the way to Denver I had some real issues getting the car to glide. I'm not sure if I was dealing with a head wind or or if the ski rack was causing a lot of drag, but my average MPG was awful (high 30s). I kept it at an average 60mph and used the glide whenever possible.

I reset trip B right when I joined I-70 in Golden just before going up the mountains. I was at 29.3mpg by the time we hit the Eisenhower tunnel. When there is juice, the car seems to have decent pep at 11,000 feet, but when the battery only has two bars it can be a real dog. On the way down from the tunnel to Dillon is a 10 mile sustained 7% grade and my battery was full again by the half way point--something I've never seen before because it was refusing to take more charge. The final tally was 32.0mpg when we rolled into the parking lot at Copper.

Going home, we took the back way though Leaville, Buena Vista and Woodland park. I was able to achieve a 50.4mpg average until we hit the east side of Colorado Springs, but it dropped to 49.6 before I pulled into the garage. The trip total was 41.6mpg which is a ton better than I can do in my Outback XT (28.6 mpg "hypermiling"), but I'm still a little disappointed with the milage using the ski rack. If it's that bad with skis on it, I'm really dreading the mpg with bikes on the roof...

Notes: All milage numbers were reported by the (conservative) trip computer, average speed 60mpg, and very cold, single digit temps in the morning.