Ultimate Adventure

It’s the often-copied, never-duplicated extreme off-roading adventure trip that started it all. Take a big group of extreme off-road rigs, a gang of crazy sleep-deprived dirt junkies, and a week-long diet of hardcore trails, brutal road days, and no trailers allowed and you’ve got Petersen’s 4 Wheel & Off-Road’s Ultimate Adventure. For this, the 17th Ultimate Adventure, we gathered our usual cast of characters, including some lucky invited 4-Wheel & Off-Road readers, aftermarket advertisers who sponsor the Ultimate Adventure, our support crew of cronies, and the magazine staff and headed to the high desert of California to begin what would be one of the most epically scenic and technically challenging UAs to date. As usual, UA2016 ticked all the boxes like long-distance road driving, hardcore wheeling, camping, exploring, comradery, vehicular failure and trailside repair, and just plain seeking adventure for which the UA has become well known. This year we’re skipping video of the boring tech inspection and check-in process so we can dive right into our first trail day of hardcore rockcrawling in 120-degree desert heat. We gathered in our hotel parking lot in Ridgecrest, California, before caravanning northeast to the Isham Canyon Trail. For more action, videos, pictures check out www.4wor-ua.com.

Participating in Ultimate Adventure definitely is not for the faint of heart. While UA always promises epic adventure, it can also test the limits of both man and machinery. No sleep, soaking rain, freezing mountain passes, and in this case, oven-like heat, are all part and parcel to the UA experience. And this year was no exception. On Day 2, Editor-in-Chief and UA leader, Christian Hazel, hammered that point home as he led the group from Ridgecrest, California, up to the night’s campsite in June Lake, California. But instead of a leisurely 200-mile jaunt up Highway 395 with plentiful fuel and ice cream stops, he drove the UA through the scorching valleys and passes of Death Valley...in the summer…on what turned out to be one of the hottest days of the year. And while we didn’t lose any men, we did kill a few machines. We also visited a ghost town, got to make some trail repairs, towed out some broken rigs, drank lots of water, removed some hoods to try to get engines to run cooler, and ran out of fuel. Then, on Day 3, we left the furnace in the rear view and pointed the rigs skyward, enjoying the incredible drive and picturesque views over the Sierra Nevadas through Yosemite National Park. For more action, videos, pictures check out www.4wor-ua.com.

Sleep? We don’t need no stinkin’ sleep on Ultimate Adventure! What do you do when you spend most of the night making repairs in your hotel parking lot? That’s right – you get up bright and early before the sun is up, make more repairs, and then head out for the trail! In this case, that trail happens to be the most famous in the world: the Rubicon. Everybody with a 4x4 has dreamed of running it. Now, no matter where you live you can come along with the Ultimate Adventure as it locks the hubs and drops through the Gatekeeper at the beginning of the Rubicon Trail for the first time since UA hit this trail on the 2001 Ultimate Adventure. We shuffled ahead of a couple big groups airing down to get our foot in the door and earn a clean shot to our campsite half-way through at Buck Island Lake. And thanks to a pretty severe winter and the fact that we hit the trial rather early in the season before most of the big Jamborees rolled through, the Rubicon was all kinds of torn up and extra-challenging. We definitely put the Warn winches and Bubba Rope recovery product to the test on this one. And just when you think we’re done for the day and it’s siesta time, here comes the helicopter with our afternoon cups of coffee. Only on the UA!

Once camp is made, the shenanigans invariably begin. After a long, hard day on the trail there’s nothing better than cooking dinner over an open campfire, relaxing in your tent, and watching your buddy’s face as he realizes you’ve wired his horn into his ‘fridge thermostat control. Okay, we didn’t do the horn trick (this year at least) but thanks to our early start on Day 4 we had camp set up with enough daylight left to bust out the water balloon cannon and some fun party tricks. Day 5 began with T-cases in Low Range and hubs locked – just the way we like it. We re-entered the trail from Buck Island Lake on the way to Big Sluice. And man, was it torn up. Ground up sheetmetal, snapped brake lines, and some other broken parts and field fix opportunities were our reward for a great day on the trail. Straight through Rubicon Springs with a little history lesson on our way up the off-camber, cliffhanging Cadillac Hill. Man, the fullsize Super Duty and Chevy trucks really enjoyed that! With the Rubicon behind us we made it more or less unscathed to our night’s stop in Truckee, CA. But one of our rigs wouldn’t be able to continue. Check the next episode to see who.

You often save the best for last. In the case of Ultimate Adventure, you save the most challenging for last…which in our minds is the best. So, technically we’re still saving the best for last. We left Truckee, California, the morning of Day 6 and wound our way past Donner Lake and up through Donner Pass….with plenty of food in the coolers. After topping the tanks and airing down, we nosed into the last trail of UA2016. And what a last trail the Fordyce Creek Trail turned out to be! It starts out pretty slow and mellow, but before long the scenery and terrain become exponentially more incredible. Big winch hills and deep water crossings are this trail’s forte. And before the sun fell on our first day on Fordyce Creek Trail, we’d nearly laid several rigs on their sides, overheated some, and left a bunch of rubber on rocks. Skinny pedal throttle action anybody? Good, because it’s here. On Day 7, we awoke next to a rushing river at Committee Crossing before wading through to the other side and breaking some parts. Nobody get out of UA without some kind of malady. Whether it’s a blown up engine, fragged axleshafts, dented sheetmetal, or even a stubbed toe, carnage is the word of the day. And this year’s UA was no exception. See if you favorite rig makes it out alive.