An epic father-son road trip through every tough condition imaginable 

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Overlanding Through New Mexico in the Adventure-Ready INEOS Grenadier

An epic father-son road trip through every tough condition imaginable 

Jason Harper

2 June 2025

Fourteen hundred miles of driving, one southwestern state: a father and son overlanding trip in an indomitable INEOS Grenadier. Blizzards, desert dust storms that blotted out the entire sky, and 60-mph winds gusting hard enough to shove a vehicle off the highway were just the beginning. I planned an eight-day overland road trip around New Mexico with my 12-year-old son, Max, during his spring break. It was designed to take us from the northwest corner all the way to the extreme southeast. 

I was born in New Mexico and a third generation New Mexican, but my son is a Manhattanite. I wanted him to both see the vastness of the state and be enchanted by its varieties, toughness and wonders. I wanted him to love it like I do—passing through at least three desert ecosystems, mountains and hundreds of miles on rough dirt roads.

There was one vehicle I had in mind for the trip: the Grenadier. The INEOS Automotive brand is new, the brainchild of Jim Ratcliffe, a Brit who is the CEO and chairman of INEOS, a chemical group. The Grenadier model, available as a four-door SUV or Quartermaster pickup, is based on a throwback idea: A hardcore expedition-style vehicle that can traverse any type of rough terrain. The boxy design allows adventurers to carry all of the necessary equipment, with various places on the body and roof to lash or bolt on gas cans, roof tents, shovels and jacks. 

The Grenadier has a gutsy inline six-cylinder BMW engine, chubby BF Goodrich off-road tires, and mechanical guts including a center, front and rear locking differentials (only otherwise found on a Mercedes G-Wagon), designed for extreme off-roading. 

Our particular chariot was a limited-edition 1924 model with a contrasting color palette of “magic mushroom” tan and black roof; the name a hat tip to a partnership with the clothing brand Belstaff and its 100 year anniversary. It was thoughtfully delivered to one of our family members in Albuquerque, and Max and I loaded in our gear (we’d be camping and mostly self-sustainable) and drove 180 miles northwest to the Four Corners area, where I was born. 

Picking up my dad (Max’s grandfather) in the tiny ranching community of Kirtland, we spent our second full day tasting rock and dirt around Largo, a massive connection of interconnected desert canyons and dry washes that could swallow a dozen Manhattans. The land was once part of Dinétah, the ancestral land of the Navajo people, and there’s little out here except natural gas wells, coyotes, a few cattle and circling crows. It’s magnificent. 

So too are the many petroglyph sites, with their ancient scrawls upon sandstone rock faces by indigenous people. Max and I hiked up several miles of dry wash, careful of rattlesnakes, to the spectacular Crow Canyon Petroglyphs art preserves.  

Dawn two days later finds us driving south through the Navajo reservation, the sun breaking the horizon and revealing hundreds of miles of land visible in every direction. It’s hard to comprehend the size of such a place, particularly when you spend most of your time in a constrained city like NYC, and I watch Max’s eyes reflect the wonder. 

We spend the morning hiking in the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness, an exquisite wonderland of eroded sandstone totems and petrified wood. There are no marked trails, and it is easy to get lost in the crags and crevices in this dry, beautiful landscape. We use a compass to navigate back to the Grenadier and to the next arid location about three hours away. The Malpais, Spanish for badlands, is a desert floor covered in hundreds of miles of black, frozen lava. Hiking here is like stepping out onto Mars. Winds across the state have picked up to dangerous levels, and every ranger station we pass shows an “extreme” fire danger level. The steering wheel fights in my hands as our rig is severely buffeted. We camp that night under torturous winds. 

Such is the nature of “overlanding,” the term for a road trip mixed with car camping, usually in off-the-beaten track routes. Fortunately we’re outfitted with stellar gear. My hands-down favorite tent brand, Nemo, has an updated Dagger OSMO backpacking tent. It is incredibly light, takes only minutes to put up or down, and withstands both these winds and an unlikely, intense thunderstorm in the middle of the night.

We’re sleeping in Nemo’s spoon-shaped Disco Endless Promise sleeping bags, with clever zippered side vents to keep the bag aerated. The right sleeping pad can make or break a camping experience, and the Therm-A-Rest NeoLoft Sleeping Pad in wide version filled up the entire tent, so we never rolled off. They don’t squeak either. Best camping pad I’ve ever experienced. 

Rounding out the essential gear, we brought the uncompromising MSR WindBurner cooking stove, with the essential Coffee Press Kit, which quickly boiled water boiling in the morning for my coffee and Max’s hot cocoa. For downtime, we packed two types of chairs: Nemo’s compact Moonlite camp chairs, and the Crazy Creek AirLounger for lounging to watch the night sky. 

We ate many of our meals on the roof of the Grenadier. Designed for heavy rooftop loads, it features a dedicated ladder built onto the back of the swinging rear door. We clamber up there with coffee and egg sandwiches and watch the sky lighten. 

We’ve got to escape the wind, though, so we flee southward again, this time to hidden San Lorenzo Canyon. GPS won’t get you here correctly, cell phone service doesn’t work, and few New Mexicans have ever heard of it. Four-wheel-drive engaged, we eventually find ourselves deep in a narrow slow canyon, surrounded by steep walls on either side, just wide enough for the truck. It ends in a dead end and the most enchanting camping spot, safe from the wind. We spend two nights.  

Our last big push is six hour drive southwest to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, a massive limestone cave that descends more than 1,000 feet under the surface. It is the day of the desert storm, and I fear going off the side of the road because of the wind. The INEOS hangs on, and when we finally walk underground we discover an entirely new world absent of weather.  

On our last full day we head back towards Albuquerque and a reunion with our family. The last few hours of the drive are through flat desert and will be boring. Max is reading his book. He has loved our trip, and fallen in love with New Mexico. My hopes have been granted. 

But, then, dots of hail hit the windows, and soon, thought it’s late April, driving snow. A full-on blizzard in the high desert. I can barely see, let alone drive. 

I knew this would be adventure.