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Deanne with the new 2022 Chevrolet Blazer RS when we stopped for a break as we headed into Nine Mile Canyon.

Craig Conover, Daily Herald

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In Nine Mile Canyon, we hit the usual early spring moving of the cows to pasture, which made for a great photo opportunity.

Craig Conover, Daily Herald

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At the end of the road high up Cottonwood Canyon. We had hoped to navigate to a overlook of the Green River, but the road was shut off by the oil companies that are trying to find and get as much out of the ground as they can.

Craig Conover, Daily Herald

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An interior view of the 2021 Chevrolet Blazer.

Photo supplied

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Everyone can remember the week in mid-March back in 2020 when the world pretty much shut down because of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, it was just 14 days to slow the spread and all would be well.

That two weeks lasted much longer than anyone could have possibly imagined. At the time, and all through the pandemic, we were continuing to receive vehicles to review. However, with work from home, no entertainment and nonexistent restaurants, it was hard to have places to go and test any of these cars.

After a couple of lonely weeks, Deanne came up with the idea that we could pack a lunch, some snacks and come up with a destination of someplace in Utah we had never been that would allow us to be home the same night. What a great idea that turned out to be as we traveled to many unique Utah locations every Saturday in 2020 until the winter weather shut us down.

Our week with the new Chevy Blazer marked two years since our first journey during COVID when we went to Indian Canyon, so how could we go wrong by heading to the same great location? Only this time, we really didn’t have to pack a lunch as, thank goodness, restaurants are now back in business.

So off we headed in the Blazer RS, figuring we could find someplace to give it a great test, even see how its off-road prowess would work. If you have never been to Indian Canyon, it is a great day trip into central Utah with many different Native American petroglyphs to view,

The adaptive cruise control proved to be a huge asset as we headed up and over Soldiers Summit in Spanish Fork Canyon, helping us to keep right in line with the heavy weekend traffic. Oh, how that has changed from two years ago when there was practically zero traffic as we started on our weekend adventures.

The new Blazer comes equipped with a 3.6-liter V-6 engine, which made getting up the grades and maintaining the 65-mph speed limit easy — and was even easier with the included nine-speed automatic transmission, with the motor producing a very nice 305 horsepower.

For our week with the Blazer and the 3.6-liter power plant, we averaged just over 23 mpg, much as we would have expected, even with the longer trip out into Nine Mile Canyon that included a fill up in Myton, Utah.

Stepping into the Blazer turned out to be more like we were seated in a new Camaro, as many of the interior features have a Camaro-like look and feel to them, especially in the new heating and cooling vents located below the 8-inch touch screen.

To add to this design, our Blazer RS test ride came with dual-zone heat controls, where we found that twisting the outer ring of these large vents would increase or decrease the temperature for the two zones. Turned out, we used this feature more than expected as our day out started cool, got warm then cool again at high mountain altitudes, then warm yet again.

Adding the element of a Camaro, we thought, made the Blazer a very classy ride inside. Ours came with nice leather-trimmed seats in a jet black color that went well with the red stitching accents throughout the cabin.

The front seats were heated along with heated rear seats and a heated steering wheel, all standard equipment on the Premier trim level. The 8-inch touch screen juts out of the dashboard as a separate item not flush with the rest of the dash. It supplied the interior with yet another luxurious accoutrement.

We also liked the ingenious way the rear hatch opened with a simple kick under the SUV. This is not a new item by any means on an SUV. But considering the fact that Chevy puts a projected “Bowtie” on the pavement at the exact location where you kick made all the difference in the world. A huge, helpful addition when your arms are full and you really need to get into the back of the Blazer without putting down the groceries.

On the safety side, the Blazer comes standard with lane change alert, blind spot monitoring, rear cross traffic alert, a great HD back up camera, rear parking assist and Chevy’s teen driver program — again, an item we could only have wished for when our boys were driving throughout high school,

Also included in the RS package were cruise control, automatic high beam headlamps, forward collision alert with enhanced braking, lane keep assist and pedestrian braking up front.

Included with a Driver Confidence II package was a very cool rear camera mirror, which would turn the rearview mirror into an LED screen that gets its feed from the back of the SUV. This is very helpful with a car full of people to see everything that is behind the Blazer. No more heads and bodies getting in the way of what is back there!

A few more additions were the Enhanced Convenience Package that came with memory seating, a very nice Bose eight-speaker system and something we would not have expected on any trim level of Blazer, a powered steering column that would move the steering wheel up and down and in and out by using a toggle system.

After driving and hiking far up Nine Mile Canyon, we continued to the end of Cottonwood Canyon until the oil companies had blocked off the road with a gate. According to the included navigation in the Blazer, we should have been able to get at some point to an overlook of the Green River … an adventure for another day.

Homeward bound, we headed up and over the mountains again, getting into the dirt toward the Great Basin, where we finally ended up in Myton, then west on U.S. 40 took us home.

It was great to back out on a Saturday Road Trip, and being in the new Chevy Blazer gave it an extra kick that kept us going places we would not have normally adventured into.

Base price: $44,000

Destination charge: $1,195

Price as driven: $50,585

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