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00:00Expedition Overland's Pan-American Series is presented by General Tire. Anywhere is possible.
00:08Talk loud!
00:17So Erickson sent me a text saying that it is not logical, what did he say?
00:23It's not logical to try and do Prudhoe Bay in the amount of time that we have allotted for Prudhoe
00:28Bay.
00:29He might be right, logically.
00:31So how much time are we allotting?
00:3448 hours to 56 hours?
00:40I think if all of us don't want to go up to Prudhoe Bay, we all don't have to go.
00:47But it's a personal bucket list of mine to complete, some way or another, just to complete the Pan-American
00:53Highway road system.
00:55And you can't complete that without checking off Prudhoe Bay.
00:59Dead horse.
01:01To me, it is worth it to try and go at all costs.
01:04Well, within reasonable cost.
01:06To me, the three of us go, crank it out, is worth it to me.
01:11I'll take the Tacoma and rip.
01:16Check that off.
01:18But, it's just a matter of whether we want to split up.
01:20That's where I'm torn.
01:21Yeah.
01:21I don't really have this strong desire to go all the way up to Prudhoe Bay.
01:26But, I don't want to break up our team.
01:32Right.
01:33I feel like we're, like, fine-tuning our system and then the split just seems sad to me.
01:44It's going to be hard.
01:47It's going to be fast.
01:49And, to me, I'm within two and a half days of completing a life goal.
01:57And, I guess it is just to say you've done it.
01:59Flat out.
02:00It is that.
02:01Right.
02:02But, it's worth it to me.
02:03Because I want to say I've done it.
02:03I think it could be a cool, like, team challenge.
02:07Like, that's what I see it as.
02:08I see it as, it might not be the funnest thing ever, but I think adventure and the hard challenge
02:14of it could be really cool for the whole team.
02:17Right.
02:17We've got the tires.
02:18We've got the suspension.
02:19We've got the lights.
02:20We won't need them up there.
02:21We've got the fuel ranges.
02:25We are set up to do it.
02:27Well, I think the last thing we need to do is split up right now.
02:31I don't think that's in anybody's best interest or desire.
02:37Okay.
02:38I agree.
02:38I like you guys.
03:16So we aired down on this gravel road heading into Manly and I got back in the vehicle
03:21and we're kind of waiting for a few things I looked over the gauges and I
03:27see that my main fuel tank is down to a quarter and then I'm like oh what and I
03:32looked over and our ox tank is down to a quarter which means that we went to the
03:37last gas station parked and everything and didn't fuel the truck and then drove
03:46off we're 85.9 miles and we have 80 miles to go to get the Manly hot springs
03:52tonight and we have 80 miles to come back out and then we're gonna head up north
03:56to Prudhoe Bay on a big sprint the reason we wanted to fuel at that gas
04:00station is because the last cheapest gas in Fairbanks everything else past
04:05Fairbanks when you go north it's gonna skyrocket so we need to put on as much
04:08fuel as possible at cheap rates and now we're gonna have to put on a ton of
04:15fuel at an expensive rate and this could be a $400 mistake maybe not that much $200
04:25it'll work out
04:28just not ideal it's a mistake it's no one's fault it's just a group's
04:35group oversight so I doubt we do it again we arrived late into the evening at
04:43Manly hot springs another quaint little town at the end of the road
04:53so we're allowed to park down there for five bucks tonight there's people that
04:58have made life there they're homesteaded that's expensive yeah get in there set up camp get
05:09out of the bugs and start the morning the fourth of July America's Independence Day
05:21Manly was kicking off the fourth with traditional festivities
05:29this is amazing we're having a I don't know how this works some sort of boat race three people
05:35on a boat really skinny speed boats and I think they just have timed loops that they're on they're
05:42just running this as hard as they can apparently that's the thing to do in this little town boat
05:47races it's awesome
05:53Manly had it all field games watermelon eating contests sack races and we were
05:59welcomed with open arms to participate I found myself in the egg toss I believe
06:09it's the first field game I've ever won we even got to pick out a prize you guys
06:15using a hard-willed egg
06:27people that are here right now we're children here and we moved away and come back or we live
06:35in Fairbanks and we bring our grandchildren right now we have our grandchildren from
06:38Bramerton Washington and we have summer places yeah and so we have a beautiful cabin up on the hill
06:46that an old gold miner used to own two years ago we were remodeling it tore down the greenhouse what
06:52are you supposed to be found no no way $20,000 oh my word it was 1980s bills just around
06:5910,000 in cash and the rest was in gold coins and nuggets and
07:03old guys came to remodel his cabin ten years after he's been dead it's pretty cool and
07:09they swear there's more you know the legend of Kemp's gold how long have you lived here
07:13well I'm just here for a couple of months I come about every summer I'm a missionary
07:18pilot okay and I serve with Mission Air Care yeah and I'm also helping pastor the
07:23little church here in Manly Hot Springs we found that this town had so many cool
07:28people we were just talking to one of the ladies that was running helping run the
07:33races with the dark hair mm-hmm Sabia is her name found out she actually travels
07:37around Alaska the interiors of Alaska the small communities and speaks on sexual
07:43prevention awareness and like violence and stuff so she actually goes into small
07:47communities and like helps the kids brings them gifts and just is an open
07:53door for them to ever talk to her if they want then there's another guy that lives
07:57here back behind the houses over there that flew his Cessna 185 over the North
08:02Pole it was the same airplane that flew he flew the same airplane over the South
08:07Pole what was the name of the orange it was the orange pumpkin or something orange
08:11pumpkin yeah look it up it's the coolest name for a plane I've ever heard you never
08:16know who you're gonna find no no just simply must go yeah see what happens okay so we
08:25told the guys we're gonna just do like pancakes and bacon and eggs we've decided to put bacon
08:31and caramel pecans in the pancake
08:35what
08:40this is our fourth of July party
08:43that's right
08:44nothing like cooking maple chicken sausage in bacon fat it started out healthy
08:55a man cake oh that is fabulous
08:59that's close
09:07Lord thank you
09:14there's a local hot springs in which you reserve by the hour by signing up on a piece of paper
09:18it sits in a combination pool house greenhouse where grapes grow above your head but are forbidden
09:27Rhonda may or may not have tried
09:33it's time to hit the local scene in 1907 a miner named Frank Manley built the hot springs resort hotel
09:40the hotel was a four-story building with 45 guest rooms steam heat electric lights hot baths a bar
09:47restaurant billiard room a bowling alley a barber shop in an Olympic sized indoor swimming pool which
09:53as you can guess used the hot springs water to heat it the resort and the mining in the area
09:58caused
09:58the town to prosper but in 1913 the resort burned to the ground mining activity was also in decline and
10:06by
10:06the 1920s only 29 of the former 500 residents lived in Manley Toby quickly struck up a conversation with a
10:13local what brought you up here i watched a movie when i was real young called the mad trapper i
10:18love
10:18the scenery you know the mountains and the snow and the trees and so it took me 40 years to
10:24get up
10:24here but i made it it's nice i love it that's great the other you ought to see it in
10:29the winter and
10:29the dead of winter man now they're on the river at night time i mean just it's a whole new
10:35world
10:35look like you're only ones on the planet look i took a trip oh seven i pulled a 300 pound
10:40sled down
10:42the yukon river at 57 below i slept outside i went 30 miles for three days and i did it
10:49just to see if
10:49i could if somebody gets hurt out there on that river and near me and i can't get a snow
10:54machine
10:54cranked up i can drag them to save it i'm blessed with every one of my fingers fingernails all come
11:00off
11:00i burnt my neck i burnt the bridge in my nose to where my skin just come right off it's
11:06not that
11:07big of a bit it's a part of the life you're living your dream yeah that's what i meant to
11:11do
11:12just makes me happy makes me happier i bet
11:27manly was a huge hit frankly we had taken a gamble on it and it paid off the people had
11:34made the
11:34experience today we're going to start pushing for the farthest north you can drive in north america
11:43prudhoe bay dead horse yeah okay let's go we're pumping gas here in manly hot springs see they have
11:55a state-of-the-art gas pump and they have a little formula here to figure out how much a
12:02gas is going
12:02to cost it's going to end up being 560 a gallon great price and it's just basic unleaded so
12:13where do you put your credit card in uh you slide your credit card nowhere
12:21okay so i have looked at my gauges i have fueled the trucks and now it is time to reset
12:27the scan gauges for
12:28our maximum ranges
12:37well we're saying uh goodbye to manly hot springs it's been an amazing time an awesome community and now
12:46now it's time to head up to prudhoe bay
13:08we push north to another overlanders benchmark
13:14so here we are at the arctic circle as you can see there's a sign right there with the circle
13:22that represents the arctic circle rumor has it that above the arctic circle in the winter time
13:28it's really cold i don't know i don't know if i believe that we sure didn't kill off the mosquitoes
13:33yet
13:36we're the star right right somewhere right the other is that it nope you can see the bugs are just
13:44as
13:45bad if not worse then i think they keep getting worse the farther north we go i do have to
13:49say
13:49prop sex because i'm wearing this is a bug's away shirt and i'm totally fine it's not sprayed with
13:56anything else so everybody else is just covered in bugs i'm doing okay oh you got it you got it
14:07i want
14:07one look july 5th 2013 i made it across the arctic circle it's in the land of the midnight sun
14:15look and
14:16she's standing i'm gonna go get mine i'm putting this on my wall next to my michael jordan stop
14:25well this is a good day for me i've always wanted to cross the arctic circle came close in russia
14:30but
14:31not quite and now it's the day is here finally made it once i started to wake up and had
14:39some
14:39lunch i'm starting to get really excited and the whole thought of being the arctic circle just hit
14:43me again and the realization that i've never been this far north i've never seen anything like this
14:47and i think we're starting to go hopefully yes we were told that the dalton highway was going to
14:55take us 11 or something hours to get where we're going
15:02the james dalton highway which directly parallels the alaska pipeline
15:06is one of the most isolated roads in the united states also referred to as the hall road
15:12it only has three towns along the 414 mile route coldfoot with a population of 13 wiseman 22 and dead
15:21horse with 25 permanent residents and as much as 5 000 seasonal residents at the end of the highway
15:28at mile 414. the dalton highway is a fast-paced road when the surface is dry trucks maintain
15:36tremendous speeds and are quite frankly the biggest thing to look out for when rainy the road becomes
15:42a muddy slush party and driving becomes significantly more difficult and dangerous there's a report that
15:49says that one in 50 motorcycles will experience a crash while on the road and are highly recommended
15:54not to travel here we talked to several who had dumped their bikes at one point or another due to
16:00the
16:01road's very soft surface or shoulder nonetheless it is a spectacular drive and our general at tires
16:07and icon suspension made this one of the most spectacular roads i have ever driven our biggest
16:14recommendation is to have at least two spare tires or at least an extensive repair kit to repair punctures
16:21we crested the dalton's highest point adigan pass in the brooks range on the other side we found a
16:27couple needing assistance with a tire suffering from multiple punctures
16:35our onboard air compressors and repair kits became priceless
16:51beautiful brooks range right there just the end of it these mountains are
16:57epic a lot of people told us that you don't go out there there's nothing out there there's
17:03just a long bumpy dusty road and there's nothing to see and once you get past the brooks range it
17:08gets
17:09really flat but i gotta say they're wrong
17:17dude this is incredible
17:20people never have never seen anything like this i don't know different up here that you can see
17:26things colors like that mountain range there has clouds on it that i don't know the way they're sitting
17:33i've never seen that before and the greens and the tans and the reds that you see out here are
17:39unlike
17:40anything it's crazy i love it i love everything about this place everything there wouldn't there's not one
17:48thing i would change i would move here and live here except for one one thing a lot of a
17:55lot of one
17:55little thing and they're all over your head right now in my head and everything they're everywhere you
18:02can't escape them it's the start of the slope the north slope the famous north slope and it just slopes
18:09down to prudhoe bay and the the arctic ocean this road didn't exist until 1974. so not many people
18:19have ever seen this land other than like you know native people or whatever and mosquitoes and mosquitoes
18:30so here we are this morning on the highway to prudhoe bay still we just made it to the ice
18:36cut
18:37last night and everybody's getting pretty tired we we rolled in around i don't know 12 30 or something
18:44like that we all woke up at like i don't even know what time because you can't tell but it
18:49looked like
18:49it was later in the day so we got going pretty fast and we packed up and now we're headed
18:54back into dead
18:55horse the road is built on top of the tundra due to permafrost and we found that overall the paved
19:02sections were far worse than the improved dirt surfaces
19:08our gps arrow was indicating that we were now at the top of the world
19:14happy horse happy horse not the dead horse the happy horse
19:19yeah this is as far as uh you can go without either super special permission or
19:25um taking a commercial tour so this place is pretty cool it's 100 percent industry there's
19:34nothing more than awesome trucks and tractors with tracks on them and this place is pretty sweet
19:41helicopters coming in and out there's a lot going on here but it's all all oil 100 oil pretty cool
19:48operation we had reached a very significant benchmark in terms of one day completing the pan-american
19:54highway our vehicles had taken a pretty good beating with the pace that we had set we estimated by
20:01the time we returned to fairbanks we had about 400 pounds of mud attached to the vehicles and spent 75
20:08dollars at the car wash removing it
20:11just here to get some fuel in dead horse 550 gallon we budgeted way more than that just didn't know
20:31oh this is gross how much was it jeff for how much that was uh we just did 10.157
20:40gallons
20:40for 55.95 not bad not bad baller spending only two hours in dead horse we pointed the truck south
20:50on the edge of town we cautiously picked up a lone backpacker this is scott how you doing
20:56that's jeff and in there is uh my wife rochelle his wife ronda and uh toby
21:08hey guys he's from france from france yeah you give me a ride thank you you're very welcome
21:16so how long you've been on the road uh i started in may 17th so about maybe less than two
21:22months
21:23i started in vancouver and i travel i travel around canada usa alaska
21:30yeah so that's over landing on foot yeah yeah many ways to do it you don't have to do it
21:35on four
21:36wheels you can do it on two you can do it on foot it's just uh it's a lifestyle choice
21:41on how you
21:41plan to see the world brave man thank you no i think it's not brave it's just a choice you
21:48know
21:48uh some people i don't know they made the choice to to live their life i don't know to make
21:54a credit
21:55to have a big house a big car and some people i don't know they prefer to travel and you
22:00know
22:00so i think it's just a choice in my life and i don't know for how long i will do
22:06that but i want to
22:08travel yeah meet new new people you know discover the world and yeah i think it's pretty nice that's
22:17great if if you follow your passion hard enough you'll find reason to make it work yeah life is
22:24adventure yeah yeah come home
22:54adventure yeah
22:56and that's great
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