Atlanta Ga to Deadhorse Alaska and back (1 Viewer)

[BT80]

Hello all, thought I'd start a thread here to share our trip we made this past June/July from our home in Atlanta to Deadhorse and back. We successfully made the trip in 32 days living entirely out of our 80 Series Land Cruiser. Ill attempt to keep the thread in a timeline that reflects our travels, I wanted to do this while on the trip but being in remote places with limited service and being on a tight schedule I always found myself too busy or unable to take the time to post...better late than never I guess.


Our journey began with months of planning and preparation of that included purchasing our very first Toyota Land Cruiser, 1997 with 230K miles. It was in pretty great shape and already had OME lift....oh yeah and factory lockers! We knew it would need some work but for the price we just had to buy it. Here are some pictures of it just a few weeks after purchasing it.

 

[BT80]

Shortly after acquiring the 80 I realized the radiator had a slight leak on the bottom jug, the birfs were leaky (bad axle seals), and the PHH was showing signs of age. After tackling all these maintenance items I began to ponder the condition of the head gasket...taking this trip was too important and time sensitive to have a major breakdown on the road. Me and my wife took a month off work without pay for the trip so we HAD to be back on time. This led me to obsessing over the head gasket, long story short after a black stone lab report that showed a small amount of coolant in oil that would have otherwise been undetectable I just knew I needed to do the job...and shortly there after getting the report the signs of headgasket failure increased, including the blue fluid test, and over pressuring the coolant system. I had an internal head gasket leak that I just didn't have the time to do myself so I took it to ACC here in Atlanta (highly recommend this shop) for them to give it the full treatment. Head rebuilt along with all the "while you're in there" stuff.

 

[BT80]

We were very pleased with the work...

I should also mention, just before taking it for the head gasket job I added a PRINSU roof rack, which I love, ARB bumper, Harbor Freight winch.

 

[BT80]

Next thing in the mail was an ARB SIMPSON III and awning. We fastened it on the rack and took off on a weekend excursion to North Ga to give the tent a test run as well as try out our new stove and fridge from Basecamp Camping.

 

[dad4x4]

Sounds like a great trip so far.....
Subscribed

 

[BT80]

I made a storage compartment in the tailgate, got KUMHO Mud Terrains, made a fridge slider, plugged the old roof rack holes....blah blah blah

 

[BT80]

Tailgate storage I made.

 

[BT80]

Tires...

 

[BT80]

...from dick cepek to KUMHO mud Terrains. They performed nicely and held up the whole trip...

 

[BT80]

New fuel pump, and of course a vinyl of North America for us to draw on as we travel.

 

[BT80]

So that's a very fast forward through the prep...if anyone wants any more details on anything I covered or didn't cover please feel free to ask.

So the fun begins, we take off...I have to say I still remember the feeling of leaving the house that day, pure excitement, joy, anxiety of "did I pack it all" etc... It was a weird feeling knowing that from that point we were in our "house" for a month.

We left around 3pm from Atlanta, basically minutes after my Wife worked her last day of her job. We headed North West making a dash for the dreaded straight windy run across Kansas. I drove all through the night and my wife picked up about 4-5 hours while I slept that next morning...and I woke up in Kansas.

.

 

[BT80]

With our eye on the prize we continued on to Boulder Co...this was our first planned night to camp, I say planned to camp but what I mean is "hey let's just get there, explore, find a place to setup and go for it". We wanted to keep an open mind and a sense of adventure in our sails so the whole trip was unplanned in terms of where are we going to sleep tonight, where is camp, what are we doing today, this was very rewarding most of the time...there were only a couple nights it landed us sleeping inside the LC in a Walmart parking lot.

Anyway...we arrived in Boulder and began to drive around checking out the town. We picked up a few groceries, locally brewed libations, pulled up a topo map, found a mountain and headed that direction. We discovered we were headed toward Nederland Co. I looked for signs of a FSR and stumbled upon one that took off up a mountain, we followed the trail and ended up here for our first night of camping ....mind you, just 26 hours ago we left Atlanta....we were on cloud 9.

 

[BT80]

More to come....my snorkel came in the mail...I'm eager to install it.

 

[ewillis]

Awesome! Sub'd

 

[Bludozer]

Awesome! Love the tailgate storage, subscribed.

 

[a_traut_man]

Super jealous sounds like an awesome trip, definitely subscribed

 

[Greenbean]

Subs for sure,

Can I ask why the Kumhos?

 

[BT80]

KUMHO is local to us here in ATL and they were kind enough to sponsor us for the trip.

 

[BT80]

SO Things get a bit fast forwarded here with pictures...I may have more at home on the computer but I'm uploading this post with my iphone so I may go back in the timeline to recap this part.

Anyway...from Colorado we made a really hard push to get to Canada. Our next day of driving took us to Great Falls arriving late, tired,and delirious we opted to give our stealth camping setup a try in the Wal Mart parking lot. We did research before arriving and knew that they were RV friendly so it would be a perfect chance to give that setup a test run without risk of being bothered, kicked out, ticketed etc...We knew at some point on the trip we would find ourselves in a situation where we needed to be stealthy. As we arrived we both went to work moving our bags to the floorboard of the front seats, laying out our dogs (our security system) blanket in the front seat where she would be sleeping, hanging up our portable fan to keep air circulating, cracking windows, and unrolling our camping mats in the back of the vehicle. This setup was surprisingly ok, granted not as comfortable or spacious as our ARB tent but tolerable and secure. Being able to leave quick is the most important part of stealth camping, so the only thing to be done to leave is move the dog to the rear, crank'er up and roll out.

The next morning we rolled out toward the Canadian boarder. We took all the required paperwork for a shotgun, even so we still were questioned thoroughly, and even chased out of the boarder office to be reminded of needing a trigger lock, store firearm in separate compartment (impossible in a gutted out Land Cruiser, it's all one compartment), no shells in the firearm, blah blah blah....so basically if you are going to be legal in Canada with a shotgun for protection from bear and other wildlife you'll have to politely ask the attacking animal to "wait just a second for me to unlock my trigger lock...oh wait, where's the key...oh, there it is, hang on....ok, unlocked...darn it where are those shells, oh yeah....over there, hang on, let me load a few....ok Mr. Grizzly now we can move along with this encounter". Totally useless in Canada....if you follow all the rules.

We survived though, made it across the boarder and plugged along trying to make good time....remember we are attempting to get to Seward Ak in 7-8 days from the start in Atlanta...
That first night in Canada I drove till about 2am and were forced to sleep at a gas station in the middle of NOWHERE, out of fuel and unable to pump until the station opened in the AM. I slept in the driver seat, in an abandoned building parking lot just beside the gas station...yeah sketchy, by far one of the weirder restless nights.

Day broke and we filled up, and made our way to the start of the Al-Can highway, where is where more photo taking started to happen...like I said before, I'll see what I can find between Co and here at a later time, just figured I should post an update as it's been a while.

We traversed the Al-Can with rain, and poor road conditions. We found a place to camp along this stretch of rough road after days of less desirable sleeping situations a good night sleep in the tent on a full belly was well received. The light patter of rain on the tent, cozy, and relaxed, me and my wife stayed up talking and marveling at what we were doing...we were so far from home...on the Al-Can Highway...is this real life?! So quickly our journey was becoming an adventure, and with so much more ahead...we were only on day 4!

 

[Law Dog]

Subscribed! Looks like a fun adventure. Based on the gas station sleeping night, I assume you don't have an aux fuel tank or cans? Brings back memories, I've been in the same situation. Do you have a spare tire strapped inside?

Looking forward to reading more, and the more the pictures the better!