My children — two boys, 3 and 5 — love “magic water paint” books. For the uninitiated, the pages of those books are pre-loaded with a light-weight layer of pigment, indistinguishable from the clean web page till swept with a moist brush. Simply add water and the pages mild up with shade, whereas children (and doubtless some much less bold adults) enjoy a tiny little bit of discovery.
I’ve instant magic water paint deja vu as I maintain my iPhone as much as the moonlight sky on a bridge over the Vermillion River in Canada’s Kootenay Nationwide Park. To my eyes (poor mild receptors relative to a contemporary digicam lens), area is stuffed with star factors and what seems to be a wash of milky white clouds. However to the lens on my telephone’s digicam or, higher but, the telephoto hooked up to my Canon, the night time sky is freaking out.
I’ve joined Lexus within the Canadian Rockies, proper alongside the continental divide, to drive the brand new GX 550 and discover some wild, darkish locations. The ostensible level of the journey is to go to in the course of the peak season for northern lights when charged particles thrown off by the solar slam into the Earth’s ionosphere and make a fairly mess. Different actions embody leaping right into a glacier-fed lake earlier than breakfast, mountaineering, biking, sliding vans round within the gravel, and glamorously schlepping my muddy gear from spot to identify in a Lexus. What a world.
Full Disclosure: Lexus flew me to Calgary, Alberta, and put me up in a few good lodges with mountain views for the higher a part of per week. I bought to drive the GX 550 all around the Rockies in Alberta and British Columbia, whereas stopping to eat, hike, and take footage of the night time sky.
In nearly each respect the brand new GX is a dual-threat car excellent for our week’s prescribed mixture of freeway driving and off-road-ish recreation. As you’ve perhaps already learn in Rory’s essay in regards to the new GX 550 vs. his sadly departed GX 470 or Daniel’s almost-glowing first drive evaluation, the brand new Lexus truck is excellent. That is my second go behind the wheel of the GX, and after clocking a whole bunch of kilometers over 5 days of driving I can affirm solely two reservations in regards to the SUV:
- Over about 60 miles per hour the hood flexes in a means that makes me somewhat sad. Bizarre, proper? However I drove three totally different GX on the freeway this week — two Overtrail fashions and one within the Luxurious trim — and all demonstrated the identical flexing hood when driving on the freeway. I’m not satisfied the wobbly hood means something is mistaken, to be clear, but it surely’s definitely not a marker of the sort of bulletproof high quality that earlier Toyota and Lexus off-roaders have loved.
- The bottom worth of the GX 550 is $64,250 together with vacation spot, or a soar of about $4,000 from the previous-generation GX 460. Issues are costlier now, I get it. And the one solution to get a few of what the GX is providing in a brand new car with related functionality at a considerably cheaper price can be to discover a base mannequin Land Rover Defender. The Landie goes for round $60K in turbo four-cylinder guise, and it clearly has a a lot dicier status for long-term reliability. How does anybody afford something as of late, good god.
Ignoring the hood and the sticker shock, I discover the GX 550 an absolute peach to drive. Canadian limits appear virtually painfully gradual, however I take pleasure in frequent forays into super-legal speeds due to the punchy twin-turbocharged 3.4-liter V6. With 349 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque out there, passing pulls from 60 mph to 80-plus are a breeze and I battle to not rip by means of the politely obedient Albertan commuters.
Threats from the Royal Mounted Police (and the Alberta Sheriff Freeway Patrol, because the Mounties don’t do Alberta for some cause) to the facet, it’s the proper place to knock round and discover with a giant SUV. This space of Western Canada is house to Banff, Jasper, Yoho and the aforementioned Kootenay nationwide parks, with a few of the most picturesque landscapes I’ve seen in twenty years of touring. From the early fall by means of the spring, it’s additionally a terrific place to go to take a look at the sky with a minimal of sunshine air pollution.
The objective of this journey is to catch a glimpse of the aurora, and Lexus has deliberate for an extra-long four-night journey to enhance our odds of seeing the northern lights. Because it turned out, the journey might have been an prolonged overnighter, because the photo voltaic radiation drifts in our course on the very first night out.
To observe exercise, scientists and photographers depend on a measure of area climate situations known as the Planetary Okay-Index. Right here I’m going to must quote immediately from the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to (kinda, half-assed) clarify what the index measures:
The Okay-index quantifies disturbances within the horizontal part of earth’s magnetic subject with an integer within the vary 0-9 with 1 being calm and 5 or extra indicating a geomagnetic storm.
Obtained it? Me both. However the gist is that, when in search of northern lights, the upper the Kp quantity the higher.
We shortened our welcome dinner after arriving at Lake Louise on the primary night time in Canada as a result of the native guides/photographers noticed Kp numbers leaping off the dimensions. I’m, at coronary heart, a complete nerd, so it was straightforward to get swept up within the pleasure across the chase regardless of jetlag and my common desire to finish a press dinner with bourbons.
Arriving at Kootenay simply after nightfall, I’m shocked at first to search out this “darkish sky” space of the world isn’t all that darkish. Because it seems I’m visiting on the nexus of two uncommon astronomical phenomena: the very excessive Kp index plus a massively brilliant “tremendous moon.” Whilst our final reviews point out a Kp worth of seven and even increased, with 9 being the higher restrict, it’s clear that the extreme moonlight will make seeing aurora with the bare eye considerably difficult.
For many of the night time I’m squinting by means of a viewfinder on the magic present unfolding above, totally agog with the small feeling people get from wanting on the sky too lengthy. Standing on a footbridge above the Vermillion River, our group is about as quiet as a dozen individuals may be. The silence is damaged solely sometimes with whispered directions on how one can pull give attention to a faraway star to raised resolve your night time sky photograph, or a muffled “whoop” when somebody catches a unique approach on the coronet of white, purple, pink, and inexperienced lights in a dome over our heads. It’s the kind of factor the place you want everybody you’re keen on have been there with you to see what you’re seeing.
That seems to be the theme of the week, as we repeatedly get up early and keep up late to do great shit out in unbelievably lovely bits of nature. I jumped within the 46-degree glacier-fed waters of Lake Louise (can’t suggest the expertise however I can say you’ll get plenty of consideration strolling again to your resort room drenched and in slippers). I took an unbelievable e-bike journey to Moraine Lake the place I hiked round and took my selfie subsequent to the a whole bunch of different beauty-drunk vacationers taking their selfies. I bought sprayed with mist at Wapta Falls and noticed bear scat subsequent to the river, the place I collected cool rocks to carry again to the youngsters.
As a solution to get round this a part of the Earth, the GX 550 is good. Even for those who don’t do a day tramping by means of mud and principally dried floodplains within the Ghost River Valley, as I did on the ultimate day, the mixture of area, lodging and all-terrain skill simply makes adventuring straightforward. I like a truck that rides and handles like a luxurious car however nonetheless isn’t so valuable that I’m afraid to step in with muddy boots or toss moist luggage within the again. All of that’s within the GX’s candy spot.
On that entrance, I’ve one other fast, very particular driving impression: I spent probably the most time behind the wheel of a GX 550 geared up with an non-compulsory $1,580 Lexus Roof Rack and a Kammok Crosswing retractable awning. The Kammok unit is tremendous straightforward to make use of, however I used to be extra impressed with how little wind noise the rack-plus-awning setup generated when driving. Clearly some good aero work is at play right here along with glorious noise isolation within the cabin. In case you wish to journey with stuff in your roof, take be aware.
There’s a steep hill within the Ghost River Valley space, clearly utilized by locals with 4x4s and dust bikes, that necessitated my placing the GX in low vary for the one time on the journey to Canada. The Lexus clambered up the hill —completely left of the proper line I later discovered — with a joyful ease. Off the crushed path or in the course of the useless of winter, that is an space of the world the place having a real four-wheeler isn’t a nasty thought.
In fact, on the finish of September with principally gentle climate and clear roads, I might’ve replicated most of Rockies journey in nearly any car with a couple of inches of floor clearance. The purpose of the GX, and the explanation it’s really easy to suggest regardless of its soar up in worth, is that it’s so pleasing to drive even for those who don’t have a thought in your head about going off the pavement. However that added functionality, numerous it actually, gives a tremendous confidence increase for pushing your adventures farther and additional.
I say this each time I journey however this time I imply it: I’m coming again to Banff. Leuxs or no, I need to carry my household to take a plunge in a lake, hike a few of the increased trails, and sit quietly wanting on the sky because the solar goes down. There’s some wild magic on this place price sharing.
