Gieco Insurance has been airing a very popular commercial lately featuring the song Midnight Rider by the Allman Brothers Band. This commercial inspired us to do our own video featuring this music. This is a short video compilation of a 2013 Ram 3500 and a 2016 Northstar Laredo truck camper climbing Fish Creek Hill on Arizona’s Apache Trail. The Apache Trail is a great road to explore in a truck camper. Nestled in between the Four Peaks and Superstition Wilderness Areas in the Tonto National Forest, the Apache Trail serves as a gateway to breathtaking, virgin scenery. Varying in elevations between 1,715 feet to 3,050 feet, the trail will take you through bronze-colored canyons, past pristine mountain lakes, and around rocky, jagged peaks. Wildlife is plentiful on the Apache Trail, too, including herds of big horn sheep, elk, and wild horses.
Driving the Apache Trail can have its challenges. The 22-mile-long stretch between Tortilla Flat and the Roosevelt Dam in unpaved, so you’ll be driving on rough, washboard surfaces in places. This portion of the route also includes a spectacular and dizzying 1,000 foot drop down Fish Creek Hill (mile post 225.5) at a 15 to 17 percent grade. You’ll need to be on your toes as you drive down this hill as the road twists and turns and narrows in places where only one vehicle at a time can pass (the road is so narrow here that we had to pull in our driving mirrors to provide sufficient clearance for vehicles driving in the opposite direction to pass). The trail also features numerous switchbacks and blind, hair-pin turns that will also require your undivided attention.
Neat video Mike! Nice to see your rig in action after seeing all the photo’s you’ve posted over on the Open Roads Forum.
Keep up the good work!
Joe Stundal aka The Mad Norsky.
Thanks, Joe. Yeah, we had fun shooting the video. More videos aare coming.
Thanks for the video Mike
In a previous post you said the height to the roof top at the back was 9’8″ Do you happen to know the height to the roof top (not including vents,ac etc.) to the bed. My truck looks to be a little taller and am curious to see how tall it would be on my truck. Surprisingly Northstar does not give any exterior height measurements.
Did Northstar weigh your camper? Curious to know the actual dry weight of your camper. (no batteries,no water,no LP no stuff ,but with your options)
I do a lot of offroad driving with my current camper here in Colorado and Utah so the height and weight are pretty important
Love your blog and the reviews.
Thanks
Steve
Hi Steve,
The height from the truck bed to the top of the roof is 83 inches. Don’t have a dry weight, just a wet weight from the factory, mine is 2,300 pounds. Hope that helps.