September into October 2019-
(also posted in the Overland Trip Reports section)
It’s impossible to go online these days in the world of overlanding and social media without being inundated with beautiful pictures of built up rigs and backdrops of majestic mountains. Being born and raised in New York, this world feels completely out of touch. For years it was a pipe dream to be in these locations, until it wasn’t. In 2018, I made a plan and spent countless hours, some blood and sweat, along with a considerable amount of cash to build a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon up to the task of handling the Colorado mountains. Driving 30+ hours was unheard of for me. Sure, I had taken plenty of ‘long’ road trips up to this point with the longest being a couple adventures into Northern Maine. But this was a different world, and an overwhelming task. Spending a couple weeks exploring Southwest Colorado in a Jeep will make any overlander reconsider living anywhere else. Words on paper can’t even begin to
describe it.
Fast forwarding one year, my longing to be in the mountains had been building daily. I learned a lot from my last cross country trip. The main one being that Wranglers are not the most enjoyable vehicles for truly long road trips. The second being that I wanted to spend more time having adventures, and less time turning wrenches. Enter the Ram Power Wagon- factory lift, lockers front and rear, sway bar disconnect, winch, solid front axle, and full size truck comfort. A short test drive and I was sold. A set of AEV Salta wheels wrapped in 37” Toyo MT tires were really all that was needed to beef up the appearance. I also added a Leer cap for secure dry storage that would trump the small interior space of the Jeep. It was the quickest ‘build’ I’ve had and was completed in about 2 weeks. I decided my trip this year would take me from New York to northern Montana, then traveling south through the state and into Wyoming.
My work affords me a generous amount of vacation, but my girlfriend could only get away for a little over a week. I would make the drive solo from New York to Montana in a few days, and meet her flight in Kalispell, Montana. From there, we would head to the Glacier National Park area. The drive cross country was largely uneventful and I burned off miles through the night. The truck is a road trip beast- super comfortable, tons of power, decent gas mileage range to keep me going for long stretches, and I wanted to be in Montana pretty much this second. After two short overnight stays in road side hotels, and 30+ hours of driving later, I rolled into Big Sky country-
Montana definitely knows a thing or two about placing real estate-
Still en route to Kalispell, I took a pretty big detour about 7 miles into the backcountry to attempt a short hike to a lake that looked nice in some of my research. It was late in the day by the time I got to the trailhead, and I decided to make it an out and back drive instead. Bear country + hiking out in the dark= I’ll play it safe and skip this one. The sun dipping behind the mountains made for some good photo op lighting though-
