RV REVIEW BY HOWARD J. ELMER
Keystone Avalanche 320RS All-weather fulltimers dream home While any travel trailer is, strictly speaking, living space, some units will make longer trips more comfortable than others. The Avalanche series of fifth-wheels from Keystone falls into this category. These trailers, often referred to as fulltimers’ units, are built so that you could comfortably spend all winter—or all year for that matter—on the road in a trailer like this. Now, designing a trailer to meet a benchmark like that is no easy task, if you consider that many fulltimers have replaced a house and all its contents with a rolling retirement home. This puts a great deal of pressure on a trailer builder to provide the comforts of home in 400 (or so) square feet. This was my mindset when I picked up the Avalanche for a test late last fall. The Keystone Avalanche series is made up of eight models varying in size from 34.5 to 40 feet. My test unit, new for 2017, is a floorplan designated 320RS and it’s this trailer that I towed with a new Duramax-powered Chevy Silverado 3500. In fact, this truck (seen in the photos), was the winner of our HD one-ton segment during this year’s Canadian Truck King Challenge. If you’d like to knowmore about the truck and the fuel economy results we recorded, please go to my website at www.canadiantruckkingchallenge.ca
After a drive through the countryside northeast of Toronto, I stopped and opened the slides in the Avalanche. There are three—twin opposing slides in the main body and one in the bedroom. I noted the width of trailer first (it’s a wide body at 100 inches closed) and also the height of the inside space at well over 7 feet. The clearance in the slides alone is 6 feet 8 inches. Even the entry door is 6 feet 4 inches tall and 30 inches wide. In fact, the trailer has an overall outside height of over 13 feet. This is actually a good way to increase inside space as tall walls make for taller cabinets and also lift the basement storage for more room and easier access. Tall walls also mean the chance to install bigger windows and the Avalanche has them. Frameless automotive-style insulated tinted windows are as large as 60x48 inches. I particularly liked the view from the free-standing dinette where the window starts at table height and reaches the ceiling in the slide. Because full-timers travel in all weather conditions throughout the year all Avalanche trailers are built to what Keystone calls “Therma-Shield 37” standards. This makes the Avalanche four-season capable. Mind you what does that really mean past the message that it will weather the cold? In the case of the Avalanche, independent testing by the Dometic Corporation was conducted to measure the consistency of the interior temperature from one end of the trailer to the other. They found it was within 3 degrees Fahrenheit when the thermostat was set at 74 degrees and the outside
RV REVIEW
COAST TO COAST SUMMER MAGAZINE 2017
30
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