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Over the past eight years, we have had the opportunity to drive a Jeep Wrangler four different times, though mostly during the dead of winter. It has definitely been great charging through the snow and knocking Mother Nature out cold, but an unexpected email offered a new chance at enjoying the brand in the early spring. It took us all of about one second to make up our minds that, yes, we would love to have a go with it for a week — and how cool it would be this time of year?

With just a few days to think before the Jeep’s arrival, we decided a short weekend jaunt somewhere would be fantastic, especially if it would involve some sort of climbing with the Rubicon. Moab was the obvious choice, but the rooms were pretty much sold out, so we settled on an outing to eastern Utah and Dinosaur Land. It turned out rooms at the Dinosaur Inn in Vernal were plentiful that weekend and also included a made-to-order breakfast, and it just couldn’t get any better than that.

The best part was that the Jeep that arrived in our driveway was as much of a pure Jeep as we could have asked for: soft top, V6 with a 6-speed manual transmission — basically perfect! This new 2018 version of the Jeep has essentially been entirely redesigned. No worries however for those Jeep aficionados, the redesign is not to the extent that it is no longer a Jeep. In fact, every new addition we came across only helped to enhance the new look or made driving the Jeep even better.

The first enhancement: an upgrade to an 8-inch high-definition touch screen, just like the one in Craig’s Ram truck, except for the fact the one in Jeep is labeled as waterproof, along with everything else on the dashboard. Jeep claims it can all make it through a rainstorm unscathed, and, of course, there are still water plugs on the floor to drain the Jeep, should your adventuring take you down wetter roads.

Before the weekend fun began, Craig decided to set the navigation in the Jeep for Vernal, because we wanted to go up through Spanish Fork Canyon and cut across Highway 191 then down into Duchesne. He assumed that because that route was a little shorter, picking the shortest route offered by the Jeep would take us that way with no issues.

As we started on our two-day adventure with the Jeep, it had us head southeast from our home. With our route in mind, we thought since we had indicated the shortest route that it may be shorter to cut across the foot of the mountain through Mapleton and hit Highway 6 at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon.

The Wrangler, of course, had other ideas based on the chosen route, and it wanted us to head up Hobble Creek Canyon, over the Hog’s Back and down into the Strawberry Valley. Though definitely the shortest and most likely adventurous route, it was also still closed due to snow at the highest elevation.

After a few minor changes to the navigation and getting the correct route into the Jeep, we were off again, although the included navigation continued to suggest shorter routes to us, as it had been pre-programmed with, what we could tell, were all the “Jeep” trails that had been mapped.

The trip out included a lot of mountainous driving on pavement through rain and snow and getting to almost 10,000 feet up Indian Canyon. We even got to follow a snowplow in late April. Nonetheless, the Wrangler handled the ride on paved roads with ease. We had to wonder how the new design, with 33-inch tires, would be on the open road and we were impressed when it turned out to be much better than expected.

The ride to Vernal was smooth and easy, and with heated seats and a heated steering wheel, quite enjoyable as temperatures dropped into the upper 20s. One of our only complaints would be that with the soft top, the wind still finds ways to howl through the car, making communication at speed difficult. But even that is all still part of the true Jeep experience.

The next morning, after a fine night’s sleep at the Dinosaur Inn and a wonderful breakfast from owners Shalene and Cody Bullock, we set out to enjoy the blue sky and sunshine. We had a chat with Cody about where he would recommend us taking the new Wrangler out for a test, and he pointed us in the direction of a trail that was just east of Jensen and across the Green River – a spot that should prove to be a great place to put the Wrangler through its paces in dirt, sand and rocks.

We found the start of the trail with ease and it turned out to be completely mapped in the Jeep’s navigation system. At first, the road was sand and rocks and pretty flat, and we thought that maybe we had the wrong trail, but then we remembered Cody saying that it would take a few miles to get to the good stuff.

He was right, as minutes later, the trail headed down into a gorge that had a straight drop off on the right and cliffs on the left with just enough room for the Jeep to crawl over the sandstone as we headed to bottom of the canyon.

On what proved to be a 15 to 17 percent incline, according to the onboard pitch and roll indicators now included in the Jeep, it danced down without even a second thought. When we got to the bottom the trail, we ran into a wash that was about 50 yards long. The problem was that it has rained significantly the night before, and the area was a complete muddy bog.

We managed to get stuck once in the mud and decided that we probably should not try and ford the complete mud field with no other vehicles in our company. Adding a winch to the Jeep would have made this a different decision as there were plenty of trees around that we could have used to help us get through the mud. Not wanting to walk out and get rescued, though, we thought it more prudent to return the way we came.

The good news was we got to climb back up the exciting rock trail we had come in on, and the Jeep did it with confidence and ease.

Later that day, we found another trail that gave us the chance to try out the Wrangler on a very steep slope, registering up to 25 percent incline on the Jeeps telemetry. By engaging low four-wheel drive and shifting into first gear, the Wrangler literally crawled down the steep slope, without Craig having to use the clutch at all. The crawl ratio of 84.2:1 worked perfectly.

In fact, we went back up the same slope using the crawl feature, then up and down three times because it was so much fun and so easy in the Jeep, not to mention wanting video evidence to show our friends and family!

Inside, the Jeep was maybe a little less Jeep that in previous versions but, in our humble opinion, it’s for the best. The Rubicon now has a flat-top dashboard, losing the hump that resided in the middle previously. There is also a nice addition of a red, metallic-looking material that gives the dashboard an upscale look. Add that to the fact that we averaged 21 mpg for the week with over 700 miles of driving, and it’s definitely not too bad for a Jeep with a V6.

The new Jeep will impress even the hardest of hardcore fans, along with now offering a great everyday drive. You can see them today at Doug Smith Jeep located at 523 W. Main St. in American Fork, phone (801) 492-1110, and 1339 N. Main in Spanish Fork, phone (877) 629-6450, or at Larry H. Miller Jeep in Provo, located at 1825 N. University Pkwy., phone (801) 356-4100.

Base Price: $36,995

Price as Driven: $45,380