The EPIC Family Road Trip - SEASON 5•EPISODE 23 /// In this week’s episode of The Epic Family Road Trip, we continue on our backcountry journey form British Columbia back to our off-the-grid cabin in Ontario, Canada. We head out on the trail which turns out to be extremely muddy and surrounded by the remote B.C wilderness and snowy mountains before stopping to camp next to a raging river as a thunderstorm blows in through the mountain pass. The next day we head back out on the trail, deeper into the wilderness and higher into the mountains. A snow avalanche blocked our way and we had to decide whether to attempt to conquer the avalanche or turn around. In the end...we probably should have just turned around...stay tuned!!! Part 2 coming soon...
Video Summary
AI Generated
A family continues their backcountry road trip from British Columbia toward Ontario, Canada. Traveling via remote logging roads in a vehicle named Vandy, they encounter breathtaking mountain scenery, unpredictable weather, and significant off-road obstacles, including an avalanche that blocks their path and deep snow that eventually leaves them stranded.
Is that an ambulance? Oh man, the road's blocked. That's insane, I don't know where to go now.
That is hilarious! Welcome to another episode of the Epic Family Road Trip.
In last week's episode of the Epic Family Road Trip, we set out to find a remote lake in the
backcountry of British Columbia, Canada. This week, we continue on our backcountry journey
back to our cabin in Ontario.
We're right back at the same spot where we crashed the drone. Lost the drone, unfortunately.
We have our new one. It's a mini, so smaller and cheaper. So if it goes in the river,
which we are hoping obviously won't happen again, at least we're at 500 bucks, not 2000. But we're
going to try and shoot the shot across the bridge that we were shooting when we lost the drone.
Lando absolutely loves to run and lead the trail. We usually only do it on trails, but these
logging roads are so remote, he should be fine. But look at him go.
The roads we're traveling on right now are just spectacular. It's crazy because there's been rain
since last night. Since we woke up, it's been raining. But up here in the mountains,
the peaks and mountains are above the clouds. So you see these rolling clouds of rain going just
underneath the snow-capped mountaintops as we're traveling along edges, cliffs,
going down to a beautiful blue river. It's just spectacular. Really special.
All right, so about a time ago, we thought we heard a truck or some kind of vehicle coming up
behind us. But then we just stopped real quick to listen and it was massive thunder and lightning
that was just behind us. We don't know if the storm is coming towards us or going away from us.
Behind us, the weather is changing. We heard some loud claps of thunder and saw some big
lightning bolts. So we are kind of moving away from it, but we'll see. We might get
soaked here in a little bit. But in the meantime, we've got spectacular mountain views all over the
place. We're just going to get up over the mountain and back down in the valley. I think
it'll be a better place to weather the storm. We're thankful for having the boys. They're willing to
jump up on the roof. When we started, I used to set the tent up myself pretty much. Actually,
Pete always went up to close it. But now, in the rain, they jump up on the roof for me,
unzip it, and do all that. All I have to do is just pull the ladder. It's the easy part.
Thank you. So we just had a long day. I forgot to eat. I didn't have time to stop to eat lunch.
So I'm just making some wild rice, some beef, and then I'll crack some eggs, some green onions,
tomatoes. And this is the best soy sauce ever. And for now, we'll enjoy Bernie's West Coast.
So that's a nice simple meal, and it tastes good, and it's very fat. As you can tell,
the trail was muddy. Good morning. Yesterday, we had an awesome time coming through the mountains.
It was quite the trail. Everything from up high and dry to down low and boggy, but the views all
along the way were spectacular. But this morning, it is the last day of April, and what a beautiful
morning. We slept by this river, and I'll show you in a minute, but in the background there,
you have a Bob Ross painting. Just unbelievable, the mountains with the mist and the river going
through. What a beautiful place. So we've been working our way east, and I think today we're
going to slow down a little bit because we've captured so much footage, and we need to do some
editing. And we're right now, there's no cell service here. We're way off the grid. We're
going to see if there's a little village somewhere with cell service, and hopefully get your video
ready for Sunday. But I hope you're enjoying this series of us traveling home from west to east of
Canada. I know for a fact we are. I've never seen country like this, and we're just so excited to be
out here. If you look in the background, you see there's a lot of spruce trees here, and then you'll have
some brown looking trees. And people often think, oh those trees are dead, but they're not. What
they are, they're the only coniferous deciduous trees. So deciduous trees drop their leaves or
needles in the in the fall, and so they're the only ones that actually drop their needles. And then
they come back on, they're starting to come on back on this time of year. And they'll be green
all summer, and then in the fall they are a vibrant beautiful yellow. So it adds such a
contrast in the forest. The next day we left our camp by the river and embarked on a day on
the trail full of unexpected surprises. We were taking family pictures, and then out behind us,
like the landlords just started going nuts, and we couldn't keep him still, and he was smiling in the
air. And a herd of elk come right behind us on the roadway. It's amazing. We drove through avalanche
zones where large boulders had dislodged from the rocky cliffs above and now lay on the road.
A good reminder to keep a watchful eye out and keep moving. As we drove along the dirt road where
the snow had recently melted, we didn't expect what was around the next corner. Is that an
avalanche? Yeah it must have been. Oh man the road's blocked. Oh my goodness. That's insane.
That's insane. I don't know where to go now. That's just crazy. It's blocked by an avalanche.
Here let's get out and check this out. We could use these to fill in zones like in World War I.
They dropped sticks into cracks and yeah in trenches. Yeah we might be able to cross it.
Just stay there. We'll move it. Jam it into it. This is gonna be the hardest part right here.
Here wait. Let me dig it a little easier. Once you get up here we're just gonna have to build a
little bridge. Look at Lando. Let me loosen you up. I'll undo you. You literally just drove over
an avalanche. Yes. That's insane. Now we got to get Vandy over that hill but uh over that avalanche
but we made a bit of a track and I think we should be all right. We're just gonna air down
a bit more on the tires uh give us a bit more traction and we're gonna get Vandy to go over.
We watched Ronnie Dahl's video on the best uh way to the best tools for airing down and he
really highly recommended these so that's what we're using. Good old Vandy. That is hilarious.
Vandy is a real arctic sheep. It's amazing. I don't know what it is. I don't even have the
four posse track or whatever it is the lockers and yet I just drove over them. That's insane.
Well good old Vandy. She did it in one shot. Unbelievable. I mean plowed right through that.
We aired down the Patagonia tires. Man those things are beauty on mud and snow,
sand, everything. Oh my heart is racing. I was so proud of her and Pete. He's a good driver.
It's insane. We were winching, digging. Vandy is the boss. Oh man that's too funny. It just drove
over that. I like I just barely applied gas and boom boom boom. Were you even in four low? Yeah
four low but I mean of course Worsley made a track which helped but and I knew what to expect
so I just kept momentum. I drove over that with nothing. It didn't need anything. This is the
dead man we used in the on the beach. It's made for sand and snow so if that log wasn't there
there's obviously no stumps. Typically you would find a stump but there wasn't any so we took the
bag off because that would be our next line of defense. We'd dig a hole, bury the dead man and
pull ourselves out with the winch but those worn on both jeeps we have a worn
Xeon I think it's called is worn Xeon 10 and those things are just awesome. That was really fun
it's those kinds of uh adventures you don't get unless you really push yourself
out of your comfort zone. There's so many things that could have gone wrong
yeah no with what we were doing there especially since we only had two max tracks
something we definitely look into getting more of after this but what a fun thing to do
snow and ice. Just gotta keep moving. With a long snowy trail ahead of us the prudent
thing might have been to turn around and find an alternate route but we were feeling adventurous
so looks like it carries on through the pretty much the same kind of elevation
for a long ways and then we go down so yeah it's uh snowy or deeper snow than we expected but
what do you do you just keep going. I wonder if I can run it from here
all the way up to my hip
yeah going forward I'll just take it slow try not to spin and that'll keep you up high
but just keep moving once you're moving and if we have to winch we will.
Good driving though I like you keeping me uh keeping from spinning so you don't go down
now I'm just gonna hike all the way back up there and get the track okay so we got stuck again
probably just gonna set up for the night up here and hope that it's frozen in the morning
we're still stuck up here in the woods not the best situation I'll tell you I think we just
did one of the most insane mistakes I've ever made on the trail we've been struggling for the
this is the third day now pretty much 10 hours a day through these snow trails yeah and we're
low on gas and in the meantime we'll see you down the road