oakleymiller
New member
My name is Oakley Miller and I'd like to think I'm an adventurer. In February 2024, after a couple of years of local weekend outings to remote Utah locations with friends and a global shutdown that had eliminated all international travel in my itinerary I felt stifled and bored. I felt the pull to do something bigger. So I called my closest friends over to my house and proposed and idea. We would take two 2004 Tacomas to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska where we would turn around and by the way of 10 day stints shuffle the vehicles south to Ushuaia Argentina. Obviously this is a popular route and at any given moment hundreds, perhaps thousands are driving it. But for us, the idea of international logistics and managing them ourselves was new.
We already had one truck. A Radiant Red Double Cab Tacoma that I had purchased from Kurt Williams my sophomore year of high school then sold in 2019. In 2023 I was able to track it down and buy it back. The search for an identical truck didn't take us long or far. We were able to find a Sunfire Red Peal DC in Bountiful Utah and with the help of a sponsor and some skin in the game from the expedition participants we bought it. This puts us in April with the trucks leaving for Alaska in late July. Truck one we call Stacey and truck two we call Bountiful. Both trucks have a TRD supercharger and factory rear locker.
Stacey needed the following
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On July 28, 2024 Talon Patten, myself and our fathers loaded into the trucks and left Salt Lake City for Fairbanks, Alaska where the rest of the team for leg 1 would fly in to join us. Over the next 6 days we drove through Glacier, Alberta, Yukon, British Columbia and Alaska having incredible experiences mixed into our long, heavy mile days. We helped people get their Jeeps unstuck, saw bears and rode boats through the fjords of the Kenai Peninsula. This transit stage came to an end on August 2nd and on the morning of the3rd we dropped out dads off at the same time we picked up our friends. On the way up, on the Alcan highway we experienced heavy rubbing from the front end of Stacey. We had too much weight for the OME springs with the bumper, supercharger, winch, skid-plate, and antennas. Cruiser Outfitters was able to get us heavy springs for a 3rd gen 4Runner and Nelson Brian was able to pick them up, pack them in his carry on and bring them with him. When the team landed in Fairbanks the first item of business was getting them installed which took place in a NAPA parking lot with a spring compressor that barely worked and some Walmart ratchet straps. We used a dog bed to catch the hardware as it ejected from the top hat of the spring assembly.
We took two days to drive up the Dalton Highway and one day to drive down after taking the tour and a dip in the Arctic Ocean. 100 miles north of Fairbanks, Bountiful developed a check engine code that we diagnosed as a faulty engine knock sensor. This was not something we had the capacity to fix but it also wouldn't harm the truck to drive on it as long as we obeyed the limp mode it had put the truck into. This means that we would (and did) drive home from Alaska to Utah with no boost and a max of 55 MPH (which on Canadian highways is not too bad).
Through Alaska and into Canada we traced the route that Expeditions 7 had taken a decade prior with My father leading the way. It was an exceptionally neat experience stopping at the Sign Forest in Watson Lake and putting a Finding Fernway sticker on the Expeditions 7 sign.
We took 9 days to get from Prudhoe Bay to the Expedition Overland Ranch in Montana where we were welcomed by Clay Croft and his son Cyrus. It would be difficult to document everything that we saw, did and encountered on the way. Talon has done a good job of that on our instagram. My favorite moments were those we were able to give someone fuel, or change a tire or help them get their Jeep out of a bog.
We all arrived home around midnight on August 12th, 2024 tired and ready to not step foot in the trucks for a few months.
I would encourage anyone who has thought about driving to Alaska to just get in their car and go. The valleys and landscapes you will drive through have the ability to transport you to a mindset so far removed from the hustle and bustle of the everyday world. You will never regret the decision to Just Go.
We already had one truck. A Radiant Red Double Cab Tacoma that I had purchased from Kurt Williams my sophomore year of high school then sold in 2019. In 2023 I was able to track it down and buy it back. The search for an identical truck didn't take us long or far. We were able to find a Sunfire Red Peal DC in Bountiful Utah and with the help of a sponsor and some skin in the game from the expedition participants we bought it. This puts us in April with the trucks leaving for Alaska in late July. Truck one we call Stacey and truck two we call Bountiful. Both trucks have a TRD supercharger and factory rear locker.
Stacey needed the following
- Supercharger rebuild
- The entire frame lasered and coated to prevent rust
- New suspension
- New roof top tent
- New batteries
- New winch
- Ham + GMRS radio and antennas
- Wheels
- Tires
- A new winch
- Ham + GMRS radio and Antennas
- Bed rack
- Roof top tent
- Wheels
- Tires
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On July 28, 2024 Talon Patten, myself and our fathers loaded into the trucks and left Salt Lake City for Fairbanks, Alaska where the rest of the team for leg 1 would fly in to join us. Over the next 6 days we drove through Glacier, Alberta, Yukon, British Columbia and Alaska having incredible experiences mixed into our long, heavy mile days. We helped people get their Jeeps unstuck, saw bears and rode boats through the fjords of the Kenai Peninsula. This transit stage came to an end on August 2nd and on the morning of the3rd we dropped out dads off at the same time we picked up our friends. On the way up, on the Alcan highway we experienced heavy rubbing from the front end of Stacey. We had too much weight for the OME springs with the bumper, supercharger, winch, skid-plate, and antennas. Cruiser Outfitters was able to get us heavy springs for a 3rd gen 4Runner and Nelson Brian was able to pick them up, pack them in his carry on and bring them with him. When the team landed in Fairbanks the first item of business was getting them installed which took place in a NAPA parking lot with a spring compressor that barely worked and some Walmart ratchet straps. We used a dog bed to catch the hardware as it ejected from the top hat of the spring assembly.
We took two days to drive up the Dalton Highway and one day to drive down after taking the tour and a dip in the Arctic Ocean. 100 miles north of Fairbanks, Bountiful developed a check engine code that we diagnosed as a faulty engine knock sensor. This was not something we had the capacity to fix but it also wouldn't harm the truck to drive on it as long as we obeyed the limp mode it had put the truck into. This means that we would (and did) drive home from Alaska to Utah with no boost and a max of 55 MPH (which on Canadian highways is not too bad).
Through Alaska and into Canada we traced the route that Expeditions 7 had taken a decade prior with My father leading the way. It was an exceptionally neat experience stopping at the Sign Forest in Watson Lake and putting a Finding Fernway sticker on the Expeditions 7 sign.
We took 9 days to get from Prudhoe Bay to the Expedition Overland Ranch in Montana where we were welcomed by Clay Croft and his son Cyrus. It would be difficult to document everything that we saw, did and encountered on the way. Talon has done a good job of that on our instagram. My favorite moments were those we were able to give someone fuel, or change a tire or help them get their Jeep out of a bog.
We all arrived home around midnight on August 12th, 2024 tired and ready to not step foot in the trucks for a few months.
I would encourage anyone who has thought about driving to Alaska to just get in their car and go. The valleys and landscapes you will drive through have the ability to transport you to a mindset so far removed from the hustle and bustle of the everyday world. You will never regret the decision to Just Go.
