Imagine a life where you wake up with the sun, have breakfast on the tailgate of your truck, air down your tires, lock in your hubs, and wheel a wide variety of terrain all day long with a group of people from all across the country. Then you head back to camp and repair any broken bits on your or your new friends' 4x4s, have dinner and a brew, and listen to some tall tales around a campfire before crawling into your sleeping bag late just to get a few hours rest before repeating these steps the following day. Sounds great, eh? That's what Ultimate Adventure is all about, and that's why we do it every year.
The goal of Ultimate Adventure is to eat, sleep, and breathe four-wheeling, and to do it from the seat of your trail rig. There are no trailers around to haul your open-topped, deep-lugged, granny-geared 4x4 from trail to trail. Rather it's load up, hit the road, find the trails, wheel hard, and live a week with dirt behind your ears, under your fingernails, and in the lugs of your Krawlers. This year was no different, but it was in a new place, and with a bunch of new four-bys wheeling the trails with us.
For 2006 our valiant leader and magazine editor Rick Pw found us some extremely challenging trails in southern Idaho and northern Nevada. Never heard of anything from those parts other than dirt and potatoes? Well that is another goal of our UA trip, when at all possible: Run those trails less traveled, and let the locals show what their neck of the woods has to offer. The world is a big place and there are still plenty of untamed rock canyons, wooded two tracks, enormous dunes, and shoulder-deep mud holes waiting for wheelers like you and us to come play in. So follow along to see where the first half of the trip took us, and tune in next month to see where we ended up and how you too can come along on Ultimate Adventure 2007.
Day 1, Saturday: Boise, Idaho
Ultimate Adventure always...
Ultimate Adventure always begins with a thorough tech inspection to make sure everyone is ready for the week. All required items are pretty logical for a trip like this. Here Editor Rick Pw goes over invited reader Randy Rubin's YJ, checking for 35-inch or taller tires, fire extinguisher, first aid kit, two full lockers, a rollcage, battery tie-downs, legal plates, license, and insurance, seatbelts, tow strap, front and rear tow-strap points, jack, spare tire, and a prespooled winch.
This year Ultimate Adventure began with a roundup at the Doubletree Boise-Riverside Hotel in Boise, Idaho. Readers, sponsors, and magazine folks alike knew it was the place to be since the big red, white, and blue BFGoodrich Tires support trailer was in the parking lot. We have been lucky to have BFGoodrich Tires not only be the title sponsor of this event the past few years, but also send one of their semis out as a mobile repair shop for everything from gear changes to airing up tires. It may seem a bit plush for a wheeling trip, and it is, but remember that they are only there as support. If anyone breaks on the trip he still has to repair his own ride, and though the BFGoodrich Tires semi was at many of our nightly stops, they can only get so close to the trail, so most trail days require carrying spare parts and tools, as well as whatever food or snacks you might need.
Pretty much every trail day is just like when you're at your home trail.Before our posse of big-tired trucks even hits the dirt, everyone has to get through tech inspection. We do tech inspection to help eliminate stupid trail carnage, time-consuming repairs in the dirt, and accidents. It's all really basic stuff like do you have two lockers, do you have a fire extinguisher, do you have seatbelts, and have you prespooled your winch cable so that it's ready to drag your ride up 15-foot waterfalls?
Before some trucks could even go through tech inspection they had some final repairs, or shall we say, pre-pairs that needed doing. Yep, in the parking lot of the hotel we had CBs and rock sliders being installed, toolbags and camping gear being packed, a ring-and-pinion being replaced, old stickers replaced with new UA 2006 decals, and of course the obligatory first testdrive around the parking lot in the Ultimate FJ, since we barely got the rig done before we threw it on the trailer and headed to Idaho. Situation normal, Ultimate Adventure 2006 had begun.
 In addition to checking in,...  In addition to checking in, there was plenty of last-minute wrenching going on. Ultimate FJ Cruiser buildup foreman Fred Williams somehow wrangled a bunch of attendees into helping finish up things like bolting on rock sliders and a CB antenna and plumbing an air compressor. |  In addition to the massive...  In addition to the massive BFGoodrich Tires tractor trailer, there was also the Hobart Welders support truck along on our trip with its newest welding products to be used for repairs. Both companies had tools galore for our camp or hotel repairs, and even at check-in folks were accepting their help. |  Though some crews were finishing...  Though some crews were finishing up their projects, others were already doing repairs. Invited readers Carl and Page St.Clair found a busted ring-and-pinion under their Uber-prepared Toyota 4Runner. This would be the first of many repairs Carl and Page would persevere through. |
 Ah, the infamous drivers meeting....  Ah, the infamous drivers meeting. Every day Pw would round up his four-wheeling troops and give them the lowdown on the next day's events. It was a lot like summer camp, but without all the arts and crafts. And in case you were wondering, every meeting ended the same: "Here's the deal, be at the gate at 8, fueled up, and ready to roll!" | | |