****WARNING! The following contains pictures of a X5 covered in dust and mud and on a jeep trail. If the thought of a BMW off the pavement sends you running for your Meguire's buffing pad and chamois, better move on!****
Took a special trip last weekend, we were able to drive the X5 into Denali Nat'l Park here in Alaska. Due to all the visitors, no-one is allowed to drive their personal vehicles into the park, a drive of about 90 miles on a dead-end road. You have to ride a bus to the tune of about $50 a person. So I am pretty sure that my X5 is probably the first one ever to drive on this road. A coworker of mine happens to be one of several dozen people that own land at the end of the road near Kantishna and because he is an inholder (owns land within the park) the Nat'l Park Service is forced to let him and his guests drive themselves into the park (which torques off the NPS to no end). As a 'guest' of his, I was able to obtain a vehicle pass to drive me and the family into the park in air-conditioned, micro-filtered, X5 comfort, thumbing our noses at all the poor saps stuck on the bumpy, hot school buses.
Its about a three hour drive to the end of the park road, and my friend's cabin is about 10 miles back on a 4x4 trail, of which the first two miles were passable by the X5, till the first river crossing, which had too many big rocks in it. Plan was to drive down the trail aways and camp on the river.
So we started down the trail, after about half mile had to pull a stuck and abandoned government license-plated F-250 out of the mud. They got stuck, left the keys in it and walked back to the road. The X5 dispatched the F250 with ease, I left it parked on the side of the trail and we continued. Trail wasn't bad, had to avoid some of the deeper ruts and bigger rocks. Found a nice place to camp on the river.
The next morning, we headed back out the the main road. Encountered a group of folks out on a 'nature hike'. They all did double takes as the big, black, BMW came at them down this trail, in the middle of nowhere. Pulled up and got about the same look a space alien would probably get after touchdown. No one expected a BMW out there, let alone one with a three-year old steering and a one-year old crawling around loose in the front seat (don't worry, they were in their car seats when we were out on the road).
It was a great trip, though it was overcast and we did not get to see Denali, the big mountain. The X5 handled the trail and the road wonderfully, I was suprised how capable it was off-road. Saw Dall sheep, a herd of caribou, and only one moose. Normally see lots of bear in the park, but they must have been taking the day off, as we didn't see any.
Few pictures from the trip: