Busted knuckles, metal splinters, cuts, bruises, sleepless nights, and corneal flash burns-if you have as much adventure flowing through your veins as we do, then you would understand why we endure the pain to fulfill our passions. We dedicate months of our time to never-ending projects, spend piles of money, and exert exceptional amounts of effort preparing physically, mentally, and mechanically for the greatest event of the year, the Ultimate Adventure-it's a vicious cycle.
The Ultimate Adventure is a four-wheel event like no other. It's the heavyweight title bout of four-wheeling. Over the years the event has become the passion of Editor-in-Chief Rick Pw. When it was started it was patterned after his lifestyle of four-wheel adventures with his friends. When we sat down this year to plan the Ultimate Adventure, we scoured our maps and called out-of-state contacts looking for trails that would give our four-wheeling cohorts and selected readers participating in the event something to brag about. The staff at Petersen's can assure you that no stone goes unturned when we're searching the country for tough and interesting trails. One day Rick just disappeared, only to reappear a week later. Once we had him seated behind his desk, he began regaling us with tales of extreme trails, vast expanses of open range, one dead deer, a smashed Grand Cherokee, and metal monsters alongside the highway (see page 96). What did this all mean? We had ourselves an adventure to prepare for.
There's nothing like the feeling...
There's nothing like the feeling of knowing you have the support of a trailer full of welding equipment and a crew along on an adventure of this magnitude. Hobart Welders sent Caleb Krisher and Darrell Sickles with a trailer full of anything we needed for metal repair. The Hobart equipment came in handy almost nightly.
So who gets to go on this raucous dirt and rock pilgrimage? None other than the adventure-loving advertisers that sponsor the trip, a few lucky readers, the magazines editorial, art, and advertising staff, a tight-knit group of the original UA cronies, and a film crew. This year we had 48 people in attendance, 17 trail rigs, and a few chase vehicles like the cool BFGoodrich tractor-trailer loaded with spare KM2 Mudd Terrains. This mishmash of trail vehicles included a mix of old Jeeps, new Jeeps, trucks, rock buggies, a classic Ford Bronco, a Toyota Tundra, a Suzuki Samurai, a Geo Tracker, a Sidekick, and the pinnacle of the Ultimate Adventure-our Super Sleeper UA Z71.
In its ninth year, the Ultimate Adventure is a weeklong four-wheeling event that consists of driving thousands of miles of highway-with responsible four-wheel hooligans-to find and conquer challenging trails. Now that scenario may sound straightforward and simple, but throw in some trail disasters, vehicle breakdowns and recovery, chasing replacement parts, inclement weather, and a lot of tall tales around the campfire at night, and it makes for one heck of a slow-rolling good time
Usually it's a mad scramble...
Usually it's a mad scramble against the clock to get a vehicle ready for UA. It's also not uncommon for some of the guys to work on their rigs right up to the moment we hit the first trail. Unfortunately some guys have a few issues while traveling to UA. Tom Allen's exceptionally cool M715 had some electrical issues on the way. By late evening the problem was corrected and the old truck ran like a top.
What's it like building a UA vehicle? Any one of the Ultimate Adventure participants will tell you that building a UA vehicle is a time-consuming, tedious, and slightly frustrating endeavor. The pride and joy of the magazine, the amazing UA Z71, was built in three months by Mel Wade and his staff at Off-Road Evolution. Mel and his posse swarmed the truck daily, his mechanical engineer slaving away in CAD creating suspension parts, while his top fabricators worked on the truck around the clock. Three days before the Ultimate Adventure, Feature Editor Ali Mansour and Mel pulled a few all-night wrenching sessions trying to finish the rig. It wasn't until the drive to UA that either one of them stole some sleep. This is typical of the other drivers and participants. Some of them rolled into the parking lot at the meeting place in South Dakota only to fall out of their vehicle's door, grab their tool bags, and start working on their rigs again while trying to meet the vehicle inspection deadline.
This year, the Ultimate Adventure began in Sturgis, South Dakota, made its way up through North Dakota, headed west through Montana, south through Wyoming, and then continued on down to Colorado for one last day of ultimate wheeling. The final destination was more than 1,400 miles away from our starting point and ended in an amazing new off-road park created by local four-wheelers and the BLM in Rangely, Colorado.
In between, we negotiated some incredible trails, met some very affable local four-wheel club members who helped lead us on their local turf, and enjoyed their down-home hospitality. It's hard for all of us to believe that this year's Ultimate Adventure is over. Regrettably, at the end of the day we packed our gear, shook hands, said our goodbyes, and then headed home only to lust for next year's event.
 Participants and sponsors...  Participants and sponsors of the Ultimate Adventure came from across the country to attend the event. Amazingly everyone made it to Sturgis right on time to check in for vehicle inspections. BFGoodrich Tires has been a sponsor of the event since 2002 and has been a greatly appreciated part of the Ultimate Adventure support crew. Gary Enterline, brand category manager, has been instrumental in supplying all the UA participants with tires for the event. This year, 99 percent of the rigs were supplied with the first sets of 40-inch KM2 M-Ts. This was the perfect size for the trails we ran this year, and the new KM2 Mud Terrains offered incredible traction. We can't mention BFGoodrich without throwing in a good word about the tractor-trailer's drivers, Tom Hover and his son Brandon, for all their help and support. |  Vehicle inspection day is...  Vehicle inspection day is a big part of the event. A properly equipped UA vehicle should have a working CB (do they ever really work?), a winch, front and rear tow hooks, good tires, lockers, a rollcage, seatbelts, a fire extinguisher, a first aid kit, a tow strap, and a jack. The driver must have a valid driver's license, insurance, and current registration. Let us forewarn you. If your vehicle is not prepared, you'll be making a run to the store. Hopefully they have what you need, otherwise you will be sitting on the sidelines watching everyone else wheel. Rick has an eye sharper than the most astute DMV representative, and he is a stickler for detail. |  This year we invited more...  This year we invited more readers than ever, five total, and we faced some tough decisions because there were some interesting applications scattered around the office. Ultimate Adventure is also another way for us to give back to some of our loyal readers. We wish we could wheel with all of you, but well, you know.... Jonathan Cooper and his girlfriend Andrea Miller drove all the way from Tennessee to attend UA and, like the rest of us, had a few last-minute details to wrap up on his rig. The other readers included husband and wife Jeff and Julie Mello, brothers Patrick and Steve Deming, father and son Gary and John Lambert, and Mark Brancieri and co-driver Joe Pfeifer. |