We began the day with a few road miles to the town of Healy, Alaska for some fuel and supplies. Once everyone topped off and was ready, we headed north to the Stampede Road turn. This trail became famous after Christopher McCandliss hiked into the interior of this road to an abandoned school bus which became his home where eventually he succumbed to the exposure and the elements of Alaska.

Our purpose today was to wheel this trail and experience the Alaskan permafrost and Muskegs. It didn’t take long for the action to begin and we quickly learned the concept of teamwork winching and strap pulling as everyone understood what it was like to be stuck in the Alaskan Tundra.

Our Warn winches and ARB recover gear was put through its paces as we slowly made our way over the twelve miles to the river crossing. The key to tundra is not to break through the crust because once you do there is no bottom. You wanted to be on the throttle but not spinning the tires unnecessarily.

Once we got to the river crossing we assessed our time and decided to make our way back to the pavement as we had other obligations to make for the day.

It was a good thing we did because the trail out was so much worse than the trail in. After 14 JK’s had made their way across the tundra, it was broken through and it took three hours to go back over what previously took and hour and a half! It took all hands on deck a lot of help from our Warn winches to get back to the start of the trailhead.

Once back on the road we were taken to a monument that commemorated Rick Pewe’s father and the work he had done on a study on Global Warming.

We made it to Fairbanks late in the day and Mel advised us in the driver’s meeting that we would be headed far north and would have a very long road day tomorrow and to be sure everyone was supplied and their JK’s we in top running order. Randy Byer’s had experienced some transmission shifting issues earlier that had turned into a problem later in the day and the entire crew jumped in to replace two wheel sensors to make sure his JK was ready for the run north in the morning.

I can’t say it enough, the JK experience isn’t just about wheeling…Its about the people.