“Lead, we’ve got three motos approaching from the rear. Pulling over to let them by.”

A few moments later, the radio crackles in affirmation and the train of heavily-modified sport utility vehicles snaking its way up a dusty ribbon of gravel in the Wenatchee National Forest grinds to a halt. But to call these vehicles mere “sport utility” platforms would do not only them, but their original intent a great disservice.





24 hours previous, we were bearing north, gobbling up the tarmac on Highway 97 in a borrowed Range Rover Sport, following the bends of the Okanagan River under a sky beset with sheets of opaline clouds. The destination? The Overland Rally held in Plain, Washington. Overlanding is many things — some specific, most significantly less so, and that's what we were looking to discover.





“The real woodsman is the man who can be really comfortable in the bush.” - Ernest Hemingway

Granted, Hemingway didn’t make himself “comfortable in the bush” with running water, satellite GPS navigation, or a memory foam mattress custom-fitted to a climate-controlled camper bunk, but that’s beside the point. There’s still something very visceral and savory about surrendering to forestry maps to feel the sinewy rhythm of unspoiled earth, churned asunder by 30-inch tires on trail that hasn’t seen vehicles since the Nixon era. And doing so, with everything you need in a custom off-road rig personally assembled for 30 days of complete self-sufficiency. Hemingway might have even tried overlanding, if he knew it was much more than scaling sandstone ledges and ripping donuts on BLM land. That's because pins on the map are more than just destinations, they're part of creating the drive experience inside and out.





But back in the moment; somewhere between points 'A' and 'B' and crawling up a series of increasingly narrow forest roads twisting up to the tallest point in Wenatchee National Forest: the wooden fire lookout hut at Sugarloaf Peak. In the driver's seat of our heavily modified 2012 Jeep Wrangler JK sat Richard Cronin: a remarkably spry seventy-something Navy veteran who has discovered the fountain of youth in his Jeep and the snow-capped Cascades. "When I bought it, she had these tiny wheels that were completely embarrassing to drive around in,” he laughs.



For Cronin, overlanding is indeed about assembling a super-capable vehicle (a long and expensive process he describes as “never done until you sell it”), but only in part. The greater enjoyment was a pursuit of getting as far off the grid as possible and creating the means to stay there — a thirst that began in his years as a young father, carting the family around in an ’72 Ford Bronco and towing a camper trailer behind.







“I think it’s all about getting up into God's country. Getting out and getting as far away as possible... —Oh, and when we get to where we're going,” Cronin interrupts himself, waving his hand up the mountain towards the front of the convoy, "you're gonna shit your pants, it’s so beautiful. That's why I'm saving my camera battery.” Obviously he had no need to preserve his battery, as he reached between the seats and flipped open a mobile battery charging pack. Off the grid with everything we needed.

As we neared the summit, the gravel forest road turned to a steep patch of sand, slowing our travel even further. The Land Rover immediately ahead of us is late reacting to the change of pace; we hear its transmission grind awkwardly, and watch its faded blue body shudder and lurch before stalling. We soon learn its engine is flooded, and the group will either need to wait it out, or tow its disappointed driver to the nearby overlook. Luckily, nearly every other vehicle in the group has a winch and an overlander eagerly prepared to use it.







“I beat two cancers and Agent Orange, but when I lost my wife, that’s when I really didn’t know what I was supposed to do,” Cronin quietly reflects as we wait for the convoy to roll. Ahead, the driver of the Land Cruiser is hard at work, insisting that his tinkering beneath the hood will be enough to get the train rumbling again. In the years that followed his wife’s passing, Cronin retired from his job at Boeing and found a new calling with overlanding through his son, who was already an avid outdoorsman and the president of the Northwest Overland — a local organization who provides a valuable resource for vehicle and community building, and who provides volunteers and guides for the weekend’s rally.







Cronin admits that while driving in the mountains provides adrenaline in small doses, overlanding is not about a pursuit of cheap thrills. Call it an addiction to freedom in its purest form instead — the ultimate outdoor high for tinkerers, explorers, petrol-heads and backcountry junkies alike. And this weekend’s Overland Rally is a collective celebration of this spirit. Granted, the forest roads in the Wanatchee National Forest aren’t quite as off the grid as driving down the Baja Peninsula or trekking the Trans Canadian Trail (both larger-scale achievements reserved for only the most capable of overlanders), it’s just enough to whet the appetite for a weekend adventure in the woods.







Land Rover repaired, epic views savored [relax, our pants stayed clean - .ed], and kidney-rattling descent endured, we find ourselves back at the Overland Rally base camp. Here, our muddy procession rejoins the field packed with overland vehicles; some perfectly vintage, others ultra-modern — a massively mobile circle of off-road wagons, bedded down for the night. Rows upon rows of Wranglers and Rubicons, Toyota FJ cruisers, Land Rovers, Mercedes G-Wagons, and even a pair of impervious Unimogs. There was even an off-road-ready Porsche Cayenne, clearly a great distance from home on the Autobahn. And across the field, an entire village of neatly organized touring motos and one-man tents.







It’s here, at the intersection of such incredible variety of life-meets-vehicle, where the beauty of overlanding becomes clear: it’s a passion shared amongst those who appreciate problem-solving and addressing the singular challenge of self-sustained backcountry travel from completely unique perspectives. Each vehicle is built for capability and comfort, but these are subjective aspects interpreted by each driver to best suit their own needs. Of course points ‘A’ and ‘B’ are a large slice of overlanding, but more importantly is everything between; the lifestyle of self-sufficiency across great distances on a road much-much less traveled.



Oh, and Unimogs.

"Happiness is a way of travel, not a destination." - Roy Goodman



