Comparison Tests
Our plan was to view Carl Mengel's grave. Which sounds simple enough, except that Carl - a miner born in 1868, who staked several pitiful gold claims in the Panamint Range near Death Valley - was deeply enamored of reclusiveness, cotton-top cacti, and, uh, altitude. His scrawny bones now repose at 4328 feet. Well, minus six or so feet.
Carl died calloused and penniless in 1944, after working himself to death in his California Oro Fino Mine in Goler Wash. It was a hellish locale, so unforgiving that a band of competing prospectors lasted only 90 days before hurling their huge anvil into a creek and fleeing to the lowlands.
Today, the Mengel Pass is a butt-busting trail with a Category Four rating. That means you'll encounter rocks larger than six inches, mud, sand deep enough to require lowering tire pressures, stream crossings, narrow rock shelves, and loose surfaces. Uncomfortable but not technically tricky, at least until we were beset by a swell 55-mph wind mixed with sand, giving us the sort of visibility you'd enjoy after sticking your head in a goldfish bowl.
Our expedition leader was tech editor Aaron Robinson, a skilled off-roader who felt the rest of us might benefit from a day practicing on the Last Chance Canyon Trail near Randsburg, California. That trail slips past the pumice mine that made Old Dutch Cleanser famous. Good idea, we agreed, until Aaron casually cautioned, "Thing is, the Last Chance trail is a Category Five."
Five? We looked it up. Here's how the book described it: "High-clearance 4WDs required, rough and rutted surfaces, rocks up to nine inches, mud and deep sand that may be impassable, 18-inch-deep stream crossings, steep climbs with traction problems, narrow shelf roads, steep drop-offs, tight clearances, possible chassis damage, novices sure to pee their pants." Well, maybe not that last part, although after we got started - on a trail so diabolical that a spotter was required every 100 or so feet - two of us did inquire whether anyone had packed a ration of Depends.
"You wanna concentrate on precise wheel placement," Robinson instructed, just as one of us high-centered the Toyota and had to be snatched backward off a craggy lump of granite the size of a major kitchen appliance. We weren't as skilled as Robinson, so it was lucky we were ensconced in hardware that masked most of our maladroitness.
The idea for this test was sparked by the Hummer public-relaters, who swore their H3 was to off-roading what a Daisy Cutter is to Fourth of July firecrackers. "Only a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon can beat us," they boasted, "and we don't compete with that." In the $30,000-SUV range, what the H3 does face, however, is the comprehensively reworked Nissan Xterra, now riding on a platform that underpins the Pathfinder and the burly Titan pickup. The H3 also faces the just-introduced 2007 Toyota FJ Cruiser, which makes the most of the 4Runner chassis, minus 3.9 inches of wheelbase. And it also seemed wise to include a Jeep Grand Cherokee of some stripe, in part because that's what won our "Rock-Climbing SUVs, Size M" off-road comparo in April 2005. That Jeep, however, was fitted with a Hemi and the top-level Quadra-Drive II off-road package, jacking its base way north of 30 grand. So we backed down to a 4.7-liter V-8 mated to the less dear - and admittedly less capable - Quadra-Trac II. Presto, we had a fourth Mengel Pass contender that was fiscally appropriate. The Laredo came with a five-speed automatic, because that's the only way Jeep builds 'em. Our three other contestants were fitted with manuals.
How'd they pan out? Far, far better than Carl's little gold mine panned out.
