Overlanding The Oregon Owyhees: Day One - Succor Creek And Bronco WalkarounD

Adventure may hurt you, but monotony will kill you. These words have been running in my head since the first time I heard them. They become louder when my alarm goes off, when I sit through the same traffic I did the day prior, when I attend meetings in the same rooms with the same people. Even the things I love, the gym, my routine with my wife and son, my dogs. At a certain point you switch to autopilot. You become complacent. You lose the spark in life that once drove you. For me, the reignition of that spark can only be accomplished through escaping the routine and embracing the spontaneity of overlanding. Which road to go down? Where am I going to camp? What weather and wildlife will I encounter? You can do research on all of this, but none of it is guaranteed. For this trip, I decided to push it further than I ever have before. I drove further from my comfort zone and camped longer. The location I chose absolutely blew my mind and left me wanting more, even after four days of no people, no service, and no pavement. Welcome to part one of Overlanding the Oregon Hawaii's. Oh my god, how is this real? Today marks the longest journey I have ever been on. It's a rainy Sunday morning in Washington state, but we are going to be in eastern Oregon by the end of today. Got a little bit over 500 miles to cover, so let's get on the road. Hey everyone, so I am about halfway through my journey now. Just kind of let you guys know what the game plan for day one is. I'm going to head to Sucker Creek and there's a campsite there that I want to check out. But tonight, since a lot of this is just driving, I wanted to do a walk around, show you guys kind of the setup that I have for the Bronco right now, and how I set it up for this trip specifically. So that is what we are planning to do for today. So back on the road, 250 miles to go, I'm making good time. If I planned correctly, I just finished up my last fuel stop for the next couple days. I am close to my starting point, but for the next four days I will be off-road only, which I'm super, super excited about. I might have to dip off-road at one point just to fuel up again. I don't know how much driving around I'll do on the back roads of the Owyhees. It's been about 10 hours so far of driving, just with all the stops and stuff that I've made along the way. So I'm ready to get to camp and get this adventure really started. Driving into this area for the first time, I really didn't know what to expect. I certainly was not expecting to be greeted by free-range cattle and wild horses. I am not a horse guy, but this was truly an incredible thing to witness. Everything I had seen of the area prior has been dry and brown. As I drove through the rolling hills, I was shocked to see them so green. After miles of slowly climbing an elevation, I crested a hill and the terrain changed from green rolling hills to red rock and towering canyons that left me absolutely speechless. Now that dinner is out of the way, I wanted to kind of go over what I've changed on the Bronco setup for this trip because it looks a little bit different. And I know I'm going to get some questions. I'm also really settling into the Bronco and figuring out where things go and how to best pack it for a camping trip or an overlanding trip. So the first thing you'll notice is this 95 liter Rome Rugged case. Super pumped that Rome has partnered with me. They have an amazing product and they're well known around the overlanding community. Definitely for their cases, but also for the rooftop tents as well. The new Desperado, my brother just bought one and it is absolutely incredible. I mean, iCamper is obviously pretty great, but the Rome Desperado, when I get a chance, I'm switching 100%. It is absolute money. Anyways, this Rugged case has been really, really nice. They actually sent me two and then two sets of Rugged mounts. The Rugged mounts don't work placing it this way because the rack rails are too narrow and then the crossbars are too far apart. So it doesn't line up with the holes that are on the Rugged mounts, unfortunately. So this one is just strapped down, but it is really, really secure. These cases have a whole bunch of slits in the case itself to where you can run straps through it and mount it that way. So that's what I did here. I just love these cases already. For a while, I was running two of them side by side. I was doing a lot of off-roading, not a lot of camping or not any camping actually. So I ran it that way to carry gear up there and get it out of the truck. And they were amazing for that and super easy to access. Now that I have the tent back on here, I have it running this way and I have most of my recovery gear in here. So my kinetic rope from Yankum, my portable tire inflator, deflators. There's a bunch of random stuff in there. I think there's a chair up there as well. So this is just so nice to be able to put stuff out here and out of the Bronco to free up some space. And it has little hydraulics. So when you pop the lid, it opens itself and then it stays open. I've been really liking it so far. So what's cool about the tremor rack is I have all this space up here to be able to shift things around. So I shifted the iCamper forward a bit and that allowed me to put the ROAM case back further. So it's kind of the way the iCamper is shaped. It kind of aids in aerodynamics a little bit and gets the air over the tent and the case. So that's kind of how I have it set up now, which means I was running my traction boards up front, but Trail Racks has for the rack packs, they have a universal traction board mount, which I have on the other side. I'll show you that in a minute. But that allowed me to take my traction boards from on top of the roof and mount it to the side of the vehicle. So I've been able to move everything around and get this set up exactly to where I want it for solo travel. This is my favorite setup that I've had on it so far and this is how it's going to stay for solo travel. This is my third setup with the Trail Racks Tremor Rack and that just speaks to the modularity and the thought that they've put behind this product. It's absolutely incredible. Could not recommend it more if you have a Bronco or any other vehicle that they make racks for. Let's move to the other side so I can show you the traction boards and how they're mounted. So this is where the traction boards are now and it's on a universal traction board mounting plate that Trail Racks makes. It has slits all the way down it and it allows you to reposition this however you need it depending on what traction boards you have. So that's a super cool option that you have with these rack packs. If you don't want to mount it on the roof or maybe your setup changes throughout the life of your Bronco, you can kind of move it around and that modularity is really, really nice to have. I think now it's time to move inside. All right, so pretty simple in here. Fridge to the right side and I have these two totes. One is all the cooking stuff that I need and seasoning and stuff like that. This is just kind of miscellaneous stuff. Camp lights, bug spray, bear spray. Just kind of anything else that I have for camping is here. So when I'm ready to go, I take these two totes, throw it in there and that's that. This is some camera equipment so that doesn't really apply. Ahead of the fridge, I put all of my wood. So for this trip, it's super packed because I don't know how much I'm going to need. And then on the other side, I have all of my personal items. So more camera equipment, all my clothes, stuff like that. Another thing is my power station. Typically, I put in front of these totes. So on the other side of these totes, I have my kitchen, my stove and I put the power station on top of that, which cuts down on the rattling of the stove because it is loud. On this side of the totes, you probably can't see it, but I have my solar panels from EcoFlow. I have little 110s from them and it tucks away nicely in here. So everything is really tightly packed in here, but everything has its place. It really minimizes shifting around and a lot of movement when I'm driving, which is really nice. That cuts down on the noise. And yeah, that's kind of how I have it set up for now. I've done this the past couple trips and it's just a really easy throw things in the Bronco and get out as quickly as possible. So I've really gotten it down to a bit of a science at this point and this is the setup that works for me. But it is 715. The sun is going down. Along with that are the temperatures as well. So I think it's getting close to time to make a fire and I'm just gonna take in the views for a while. It was an extremely long day of driving and I'm ready to just chill. So let's do that. With day one coming to a close, I couldn't help but feel anxious for day two. I barely scratched the surface of this area and it has already left an impact on me that will stay with me for the rest of my life. I thought to myself, this is only day one. What else does this place have in store for me? I would find out soon enough.