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Here’s another reason to get a fifth wheel instead of a bumper-mounted travel trailer. The last few legs of our roadtrip have confirmed that we made the right choice…

When we researched purchasing a travel trailer or a fifth wheel, we discovered that fifth wheels are much less likely to sway in high winds as the weight is centered over the axle instead of hanging off the bumper.

Over the past few days we have experienced some pretty high winds. Traveling south on CA highway 395 and then up out of Death Valley, we experienced strong winds from all directions. Not once did I feel instability in the trailer. I never noticed the fifth wheel sway or fishtail from side to side. It felt steady even in the strongest winds and was always rock steady in the rear view mirror.

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For the past couple nights we’ve been staying hitched to our fifth wheel trailer when spending just one night in RV resorts. We’ve researched this online and only found this one forum discussion about staying hitched that addressed the issue specifically. It confirmed my assumption that it will do no harm to the truck.

I do, however, raise the trailer a bit more than the RV.net Open Roads Forum member who mentioned he only extends his trailer legs an inch or so after hitting the ground. Personally, I recommend lifting the trailer until I notice the truck bed actually lift. Then I retract the trailer legs until it appears there is no weight on truck bed. All it takes is a couple small adjustments up and down to relieve all weight from the truck’s shock absorbers.

Please note that we do not have air shocks on our Dodge Ram 2500. I do not know how staying hitched will affect air suspension bags. All comments are welcome.

As far as king pin tripods go, we looked into that too after noticing many fifth wheel rigs with them in RV resorts. We’ve read online that larger 5ers benefit more from using tripods – but the smaller 5er the less rocking. We’ve determined using a fifth wheel kingpin tripod is not necessary for our 24′ Arctic Fox. Just something else to carry… I would only consider it if I ever take up permanent residence like I’ve seen in some of the parks where we’ve stayed. But then we would need to go back to Humboldt County and get a carved redwood bear holding a welcome sign.

From our direction we’re traveling in, there’s only one road in, and one road out, to the hottest, most inhabitable place in North America, Death Valley. The music of Pink Floyd is the ultra mellow soundtrack for our crossing at 5:30 am today.

Way back in 1996, the first time we crossed this inferno, the only soundtrack was the wind screaming in my ears as we rode across on bikes getting baked in our leathers. Back then, we gave no thought to what time we crossed. I think we did it at noon. Today, drive across in comfort at dawn in our big ass truck, yet, I’m still terrified. Couldn’t sleep all night thinking about this epic drive. I mean what kind of morons do this in summertime? Us, that’s who. We’re always good for this sort of misadventure.

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