The Valley was soon in my rearview and the mountains loomed
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| You can tell the Sport's a true Range Rover; it still looks fantastic, even when covered in salt, silt and dirt. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press) |
overhead, glorious in their presence but foreboding just the same. I've done this route many times, and while some trips have been filled with blue skies framing green, gray, and in winter, white landscapes, others tormented with desperate white-out conditions that made it difficult to see the lines on the road directly in front of the car, let alone scenery. I climbed out of the valley, making good pace in the Sport, the engine and six-speed automatic combination effortlessly scaling grades that often make lesser vehicles gasp in breathless overwhelm. Not surprisingly, the Sport managed the high speeds with composure too, its air suspension totally soaking up pavement irregularities while keeping the hefty 'ute tracking flawlessly... that is until the pavement below transfigured into a brownish snow, with only the rightmost lane clear enough to safely maintain the speed to which I'd become accustomed.
I pushed on, flurries now whirling around overhead, but not so much as to block my vision. The biggest obstacles were inevitably on the road before me; vehicles making their way northeast, just like me, forcing me to pass if only to avoid flying rock salt and, as I soon found out... stones. Yes, one hit the windshield like a bullet ricocheting off a sheet of shale, but unlike what it
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| The Sport's body is lower and sleeker than the classic Range Rover, buthas the same general shape and blacked-out pillars. (Photo: TrevorHofmann, Canadian Auto Press) |
would likely do to the black rock the impact resulted in a tiny crack. No worries, I'm sure that this can be fixed without replacing the glass. And then another... whack! Ouch. I know it's not my vehicle, but I was raised to take better care of things that were borrowed than even that which is my own, so I felt each hit as if it were tearing apart my very own Sport, and possibly even more so. I eased into the passing lane and feathered the throttle, not to upset the SUV's level of traction by adding too much torque. I held on, passing a number of cars, vans, pickups and highway trucks, none of which appeared expensive enough to cause their owners any concern over flying debris, and once in front was able to stay out of harm's way until I reached the toll booth atop the mountain. It was then, when I was able to relax for a moment, that I noticed a rotating dial on the centre console, complete with pictographs
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| Not all the Range Rover Sport's knobs, switches and buttons are for pampering its occupants, but these are. (Photo: TrevorHofmann, Canadian Auto Press) |
depicting various road conditions. Just to the right of my default setting, I noticed one with swerving tracks and a snowflake image, and immediately pressed the knob, which elevated it from its recessed position, and then turned it to the appropriate setting. Immediately driving on snow became almost as carefree as on dry pavement, allowing me to move to the left as soon as I saw upcoming traffic closing in, so that I could avoid any more damage to the window - or anywhere else that wouldn't have made itself known as of yet.
Its mostly all downward from the toll booths, at least until the tiny town of Merritt ushers in a four-way crossroads that could either have me pointing north, to Kamloops, northeast, to Kelowna, west, to the beautiful Nicola Valley (maybe another time), or southwest, from where I came. I continued on toward Kamloops, unaware that the storm I had just passed through would seem like a cakewalk compared to the peaks that lay between me and my final destination.
The hill out of Merritt is long, steep and again, taxing on some
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| Peaks and valleys flattened by the Sport Supercharged's 410 lb-ft oftorque - and cool side vents to boot. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, CanadianAuto Press) |
vehicles, but similarly hardly noticeable to the Sport. The road was wet but not drenched, and fortunately the white stuff was relegated to the shoulders. Reaching the summit and rounding the mountaintop everything changed. Now snow was everywhere, and with it the intensity over the previous leg of my journey increased. The highway was now completely covered and air filled with more aggressive swirls of the white stuff, gusting and limiting visibility, tiring the mind as much as the eyes. I new I was only an hour away from Kamloops, and therefore pressed on. Again, the Sport maintained a swift clip without showing any signs of instability, making me glad I'd opted for what I now considered to be the ultimate winter traveling companion.
