waveslider
Outdoorsman
If you are like us and 100% of the time you want to be where other people aren't, the choice is obvious.
Extreme use Earthroamer
- Thread starter andytruck
- Start date
VikingVince
Explorer
Earthroamers have done the road to Toroweap (north rim of the Grand Canyon, also called Tuweep)...I think there are pics somewhere here on ExPo. It's a 60 mile dirt/gravel road but the last 10-20 have loose shale, deep ruts and a little off camber in places...high clearance and 4WD required.
On a trip there several years ago, came across a guy and gf trying to drive out there in a regular car with highway tires...he had 2 flats! Al Walters (RIP...some of you remember him) took the guy and his tires 40 miles back into town to get them fixed.
On a trip there several years ago, came across a guy and gf trying to drive out there in a regular car with highway tires...he had 2 flats! Al Walters (RIP...some of you remember him) took the guy and his tires 40 miles back into town to get them fixed.
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LandCruiserPhil
Expedition Leader
Last time I was at Toroweap there were more passenger cars and minivans than "expedition vehicles"
Did they have special permission?
Prohibited
- Vehicles and vehicle combinations longer than 22 feet (6.7 m) are prohibited. This is the total length from end to end, including anything towed.
waveslider
Outdoorsman
I wonder if there is a automatic timer on the forum that we can set so this topic comes up every 3 months as a matter of course?
That way no one has to remember "Oh, it's my turn to start the "large expo vehicle/rock crawler/offroad vs bad road butthurt pissing match" thread. It gets annoying when someone misses their turn and we have to wait a whole 5 or 6 months for it to come around again.
That way no one has to remember "Oh, it's my turn to start the "large expo vehicle/rock crawler/offroad vs bad road butthurt pissing match" thread. It gets annoying when someone misses their turn and we have to wait a whole 5 or 6 months for it to come around again.
Or it could just be summed up every so often as "Yours is bigger/more expensive than mine, so mine must be better?"
Howard
AbleGuy
Officious Intermeddler
But maybe sometimes that exactly the point....to stir ******** up a bit, and get an entertaining debate going, the sit back and childishly giggle at the swarm of angry bees streaming out of the hive you kicked over. I’d say that was precisely the intention of this OP. Ha! And you all fell for it!
But I say, Right On!
I thoroughly enjoy reading and joining in on some of these weird, wandering, back and forth dialogues. They definitely add a little extra hot salsa to the forum.
If it really becomes a big problem, then the Mods can step in.
AbleGuy
Officious Intermeddler
Oh, Rats! Darn and curse you, You’ve just let the cat out of the bag about one of the best kept secrets about exploring B.C. ....the great logging roads one can get on to explore the wild country!
Years ago, while driving a HD 3/4 T 4wd pickup with a small hard sided camper on it up the then unpaved Cassiar Hwy in far western B.C., we often took the chance to turn off it on to logging (or mining?) roads that tied into it. In doing so, we were immediately wowed by how much further into wild country we suddenly were.
Ever since that trip, I’ve dreamed of returning to further explore those rough trail in something even more heavy duty, like a 4x4 Fuso with a 10’ Alaska camper on it. FWIW, I think an EarthRoamer would get its azz kicked on those narrow, beat up dirt tracks.
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Trikebubble
Adventurer
i just came back from spending two glorious weeks exploring Northern Vancouver Island. You can get almost anywhere up their via logging roads.....of course the downside if you have to watch for those massive Vancouver Island logging trucks and be prepared to eat the ditch at a moments notice (still worth it though)
AbleGuy
Officious Intermeddler
They’ve got really huge mother’s, like this, up there.
And yeah, you better get out of their way!
(Kinda like those scary, ginormous asbestos mine trucks that you’d encounter coming straight at you, roaring right down the middle of the gravel surfaced Cassiar Highway years ago.)
And now, back to the rather tired discussion of whether $300 k campers could/should be driven off-road.....
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Peter_n_Margaret
Adventurer
I never had $300K, so I built my own for $100K, but that was 15 years ago (and counting).
Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 motorhome
waveslider
Outdoorsman
P&M, it works perfect.
I have yet to encounter a logging road that our truck can't make it down- easily.
I have yet to encounter a logging road that our truck can't make it down- easily.
Gooseberry
Explorer
That’s because you are prepared and can handle that situation.
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Gooseberry
Explorer
The thing is the places I take my RB Sportsmobile are not the places I would take any one of these. It’s simple to see and I’m not going to bag on who but they failed on the simple course at expo a few years ago and yes I freaked out a Land Rover guy that kept saying you can’t do that. I do think he wet himself for real
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Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
AbleGuy
Officious Intermeddler
Ok, hee, hee,, just to “poke the caged, angry bear” a bit more ? and have some more fun with this topic of pricey rigs going off-road, while I’d dearly love to be able to afford a $170,000 SMB just like this one written up here in the XP, I’m really wondering if maybe I can make do with our Subaru Outback for a few more years.?
Pics from the XP article on the beautiful new, very pricey wide bodied SMB van, driving on a forest road somewhere up in the Cascades, implicitly showing its intended usefulness:
Pictures below of where we were driving just a few weeks ago...nothing too hardcore, but certainly no better than the road pictured above, way up on top of those same mountains, taking the Suby into the woods to pick huckleberries:
(These weren’t designed to be cool, instagram, scenic shots...I was just fooling around with my tiny iPod to document our day’s outing...)
So, I don’t see a whole heck of a lot of difference in these two roads.
Happy to have saved $140k when we bought the Subaru instead of the SMB.
So, just to be clear...I’m not bashing the capability of this awesome SMB van. In fact, if I found out that I won the lotto tomorrow, my second phone call would be to these SMB guys ordering one of these.
But, as the issue in this thread brought up....how often do these lucky, wealthy adventure mobile buyers ever get out in the wild and use their fancy rigs hard? Do worries about things like getting a little vegetation pin striping on the pretty paint discourage too many of owners from really discovering the fun these rigs are intended to bring them? We sometimes wonder.
And, if you’re trying to sell me one of these expensive, go anywhere beasts, try showing them used in a bit more of a challenging situation than taking a Sunday picnic drive out in the woods on a nice, graded dirt road.
Yeah, yeah....I know what some of you are going to say about this lame comparison above....and,hey, guess what, I agree with you!
E-Series Revival: Sportsmobile’s Rebirth of the Econoline - Expedition Portal
I don’t think the Ford Econoline gets nearly the credit it deserves. While most of us look at the GT and the Mustang as the blue oval’s heritage cars, I feel the E-Series is equally deserving, perhaps more so. I mean, sure, the GT won a lot of titles. And the Mustang inspired generations of...
expeditionportal.com
Pics from the XP article on the beautiful new, very pricey wide bodied SMB van, driving on a forest road somewhere up in the Cascades, implicitly showing its intended usefulness:
Pictures below of where we were driving just a few weeks ago...nothing too hardcore, but certainly no better than the road pictured above, way up on top of those same mountains, taking the Suby into the woods to pick huckleberries:
(These weren’t designed to be cool, instagram, scenic shots...I was just fooling around with my tiny iPod to document our day’s outing...)
So, I don’t see a whole heck of a lot of difference in these two roads.
Happy to have saved $140k when we bought the Subaru instead of the SMB.
So, just to be clear...I’m not bashing the capability of this awesome SMB van. In fact, if I found out that I won the lotto tomorrow, my second phone call would be to these SMB guys ordering one of these.
But, as the issue in this thread brought up....how often do these lucky, wealthy adventure mobile buyers ever get out in the wild and use their fancy rigs hard? Do worries about things like getting a little vegetation pin striping on the pretty paint discourage too many of owners from really discovering the fun these rigs are intended to bring them? We sometimes wonder.
And, if you’re trying to sell me one of these expensive, go anywhere beasts, try showing them used in a bit more of a challenging situation than taking a Sunday picnic drive out in the woods on a nice, graded dirt road.
Yeah, yeah....I know what some of you are going to say about this lame comparison above....and,hey, guess what, I agree with you!
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