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Eagle Cap camper on 2009 Silverado, 8-foot bed.
We decided a few weeks ago to do the adventure drive to Alaska and back for our Wildsnow Denali expedition. That’ll make for wonderful backcountry skiing travel blogging, with perhaps a few ski descents along the way. Problem was, my older 2002 Silverado was getting rather long of the tooth. Plan was to upgrade next summer, so in view of the big AK trip I went ahead and pushed the upgrade up a few months. Replacement is a 2009 Silverado 2500 Duramax (more on that later, when ALL the mods are done).
We’d also been planning for a while to acquire an RV for backcountry skiing and other adventures, either a sport van, smaller motor home, or slide-in pickup camper. Every RV has it’s pluses and minuses for backcountry trailhead use. Perhaps most importantly, most don’t come in 4-wheel-drive without expensive conversions. Even so, I briefly considered a 4×4 Sportsmobile conversion van. But the cost of a dedicated RV combined with eventually upgrading my truck anyway (I always need a truck) was too much, as was the budget burden of owning yet another vehicle requiring insurance, yearly registration, upkeep, and more.
So, as is the solution for bubbas worldwide, our chosen RV option is the big white box that slides into the bed of the ubiquitous pickup truck.
Since we tow our jeep or snowmobile trailer, I wanted a camper that rested flush with the end of a full-length 8-foot bed (which is what we bought the truck with). That way we wouldn’t have to contend with the camper overhanging the rear of the truck, necessitating using a “stinger” hitch extension and other stuff that would just add ever more details and junk to my life.
Though they exist, campers that exactly fit an 8-foot bed are not that common at dealerships. Yet as fortune would have it, one 8 foot long unit was sitting on a lot down in Grand Junction, and it was nearly exactly what we wanted. Check it out:
At about 1,600 lbs estimated wet weight for the Eagle Cap 711,our Silverado 2500 (8-foot-bed) supports the camper with almost no sag, and nearly zilch excess sway while driving. I’ll still upgrade to adjustable shocks, but that’s optional in our case.
Another view of the rig, I like the way it fits tightly to the truck instead of having that bloated highway RV type look.
Interior is basic, with real wood cabinetry that's for the most part of reasonable quality. Because this is only an 8-foot long camper and not super wide, the interior is a bit cramped but fine for two people. It'll work for three or four during, but I wouldn't want to make a habit of that.
Looking at interior from rear door.
The cab-over bed area is huge, as it's optimized to fit over the full crew-cab 4-door pickup. In this photo, we've got the queen sized mattress oriented from front to back and it comes exactly to the edge of the kitchen/living space, with tons of room on either side for baggage.
Lastly, another mod! The Silverado comes with a few months trial for XM satellite radio. While sat radio reminds me somewhat of that old Boss song '57 channels and nothing on,' it does provide some listening that's worthwhile, and is addictive when you get used to not constantly hunting for a working channel while driving in the backcountry. Problem is, the cab-over camper covers the antenna as indicated in the photo above, pretty much blocking the radio from functioning. Solution was to buy a sat radio antenna for the camper and wire it into the sat radio behind the truck dash. Pain in the rear, but now XM works great. Question is, will the 1-year trial of Onstar work correctly with the camper blocking the signal? More testing required. I'm really digging the Onstar hands-free dialing, though my understanding is it's based on cell service so thus not as useful as it could be if satellite based.
There you go, a first look at the new cab-over Eagle Cap. One we get it set up and finish the initial mods, I’ll file another post. Till then, on the powder road we go!
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
