Road trip to Silverton and Ouray, CO - Day 1
As I have mentioned previously, my wife and I decided to head up to southern CO for a little reprieve from the usual grind. Being only 3-4 hour drive from our front door in Albuquerque, we typically drive up about 2-4 times a year especially since my wife has really learned to enjoy the off-road adventures I take while there.
This is only the first day of our 4 day trip so all I can really report on is how the new build performed on-road as I have not taken it off-road save for a couple side excursions on some dirt roads to take in some local sights.
For the highway trip, we started from our home which is situated right along the Rio Grande River in Albuquerque, NM at an elevation of about 5200 ft and traveled north for 3 hours to Durango, CO at 6600 ft. and then upward from there cresting right at 11,000 ft before coming down to Silverton, CO. at 8730 ft. above sea level. So the trip is all up hill mountain driving and the Ram averaged about 14.5 mpg with speeds varying between +80 mph on the open highway to 15 mph on the mountain switchbacks. I thought this was quite good for a lifted full sized truck with +34-inch tall tires (considering my similarly built Tundra was in the 11-12 mpg range during same route). Despite the aggressive MTs, the tires rode smooth with road noise being nonintrusive at all while the new Fabtech Dirt Logic suspension soaked up everything at speed.
Didn't take any photos while in Durango but managed a few while on the road between Durango and Silverton.
Trekking through the San Juan mountains between Durango and Silverton:
The suspension and tire combo actually netted closer to 3-inches over the stock factory ride height. Despite the new suspension which hasn’t settle in yet and the more aggressive MTs, it is amazing how smooth the ride quality is.
