The road chose me

Have you ever wanted to do something to find out if you could – to see what kind of person you are?
Have you ever wanted to actually live your dreams instead of watching them hover just out of reach?
Have you ever wanted to do something so crazy you were almost afraid to say it out loud?

Next week, I’m setting out to drive my Jeep 50,000kms on The Pan American Highway from The Arctic Ocean in Northern Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego, the southernmost point of South America.

I’m going to record my whole trip here with stories and photos, but more than that, I want you guys to join in too. Remember those “choose your own adventure” books where you got to make up your own story? I’m going to make my trip the same for you. Whenever I get to a fork in the road, or I can’t decide if I should detour to see some ruins, or stick around another week, I’m going to ask you guys. The choices will be put to a vote – the choice with the most votes wins and I’ll do it.

Maybe you’ve always wanted to hike to Macha Pichu or to drive Bolivia’s “Road of Death”. Here’s your chance. If it gets voted up I’ll do it. You’ll be able to read all about it here with trip reports, adventure stories and photos.

I think the whole trip will take twelve months, but that’s just a guess – let’s say plus or minus six months to that.
Updates will come shortly on my Jeep, gear, medical requirements and more. In the mean time, checkout my completely made-up route north/south and the Jeep looking pretty excited

-Dan

Dan and Jeep ready to go.

Completely made up.

“We had a 47cm day last week – I rated it a 2 out of 10.”  –Mike on pow

I hadn’t spoken to Mike since we finished up our snowboard roadie over a month ago – he sure has been keeping busy since then.
He completed his Avalanche Skills Training level 1 course and now heads into the back country at least twice a week. The guy gets to ride powder the quality of which the rest of us can only dream about.
He cut a cornice off the top of a chute.

A cornice. Off a chute. Yeah. I know.

He went cat skiing the other day with a bunch of his friends from ski school. Even the guide was impressed with the snow and terrain “We don’t get up into this stuff very often” he mentioned. Mike was more than proud to tell me about the 30 foot cliff he and Joel had dropped. In. Sane.

Needless to say I’ve booked a week off work so I can get out there as fast as possible.
Take note of the high-cost, high-fashion gear he is riding. I think it helps him ride better.

-Dan

Carving up the pow

Dropping a 30 footer

Boost that rock

Murphy’s law kicked in big time this winter – first weekend I smoked a nice rock, tearing all the way to the base.
I was super lucky not to even dent the rail.

At first I P-Texed the hole, but that would fall out after only a day or two. After a bit of reading around, I figured I’d give base welding a shot.
I only used a cheap soldering iron, which I don’t think was hot enough. It wasn’t too hard though, I just had to “wipe” the plastic off the iron.
The base-weld has held perfectly since then and is rock hard. Waaaayyy better than P-Tex.

Only a few weeks later, while standing in line for the first chair of the day, I broke the cable on my NXT-FX Flows. Damn.

Update: The base weld lasted perfectly for the whole winter. I’m not even going to touch it for 08/09.

I drove down to Rossland, B.C. and spent a week with Mike and & Erin.
We had a great time – snowboarding, cooking, laughing and generally having fun.