Extreme use Earthroamer

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.
 
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LandCruiserPhil

Expedition Leader
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.

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.


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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.
 

AbleGuy

Officious Intermeddler
'Andytruck', the initial poster, posted a follow-up, and that's that. Too many forum topics get started this way, basically to poke a person, or a product, or both. Then, as everyone sprawls around to take a position, etc., the OP sits back and laughs....

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
I see no reason why you couldn't stuff an Earthroamer (or equivialnt) anywhere you can take a logging truck. And here in BC, logging trucks go to some pretty amazing places.


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
Oh, Rats! Darn and curse you, You’ve just let the cat out of the 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.


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
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)


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.)

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And now, back to the rather tired discussion of whether $300 k campers could/should be driven off-road.....
 
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Gooseberry

Explorer
Let me first say that I have little or no experience compared to some of the others with large rigs that have posted on this thread! So please don't place much value in my view of "extreme" off roading with a "BIGASS $X$ Condominium". My "girl" Casa weighs 16'900 lbs dry (she goes right back on Jenny Craig whenever we get home from a trip) and up to 22K if we have the RHI boat on her roof in addition to the surfboards, kayak, etc. And of course all the food, h20, diesel, tequila... for an extended solo stay "MI CAMPO" (we've done 3+ weeks several times)

The whole concept about big adventure rigs is not hunting for extreme off-road, but being prepared when it finds YOU!

And OH MAN! When it does... It can put your knickers in a SERIOUS twist so fast your head will spin around!!! We've had several of the last 25 years, here is the one that could have been the worst...

We have spent most of the day exploring a remote part of the pacific side of Baja and its time to hunt for a camp site. We find this BEAUTIFUL lagoon to camp by and enjoy that evenings full moon , we turn on to this double track that is nice and firm and check out a couple of nice camp spots then I see the PERFECT spot about 1/4 of a K ahead of us and put down the throttle towards in on the hardpack...

THEN sank my 20,000 pound truck to above my axles!!! OOPS, what I thought was hardpack was actually soft marsh sand (quicksand) that at low tide had been warmed and dried by the afternoon sun and LOOKED EXACTLY LIKE THE ROAD I WAS DRIVING ON!

So now I am seriously stuck (with my freaking girlfriend and our 2 dogs), there is nobody around us for miles much less with a vehicle that could pull out a vehicle Casa's size...

AND THE TIDE IS RAISING!!!

We made it out! But boy, by the "shorthairs", the lagoon tide rose that night by about 5 feet and made where we first got stuck about a 1/4 mile from dry land!

View attachment 533047

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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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:


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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...)
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So, I don’t see a whole heck of a lot of difference in these two roads.
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Happy to have saved $140k when we bought the Subaru instead of the SMB.
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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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