The Tracker and I arrived home dusty and dirty a couple of hours ago from our week-long EXBRO6 overlanding trip. It was a splendiferous trip, with seven days of driving though the open ranges, deserts and mountains of Eastern Oregon. CC’s dman as well as my nephew joined us this year, and we enjoyed the company as much as the scenery.
Rocky section of Burma Road
As to the Tracker, it acquitted itself perfectly, and was a ball to drive (not quite so much so on the highway). There’s no question that the xB would almost certainly not made it on some of the more technical sections. The others took some videos of the Tracker at work on those, and when I get them and other pictures, I’ll write up a full report.
The four EXBRO rigs
A big thanks to Daniel Stern for keeping CC in its tracks while I was gone.
Good to see that you made it back without major incident. Those little 4WDs look like a good way to get into off/ back roading. Do you ever see anyone in a big bro dozer taking part?
I think we drove several hundred miles of backcountry trails and unpaved BLM and Forest Service roads, plus graded gravel County roads, and except on the latter I don’t remember encountering ANY other vehicles. What we saw at some trailheads and rest stops were Jeeps, Subaru’s, Toyota 4WD’s and lots of dual sport motorcycles. The non-Toyota pickups were full-size ranch trucks. No bro-dozers.
Welcome back from the land of dust! Glad to see the little Suzuki in drag made it, and looks like it made it well. I’m looking forward to seeing and hearing more about this year’s adventure…
Congratulations. Can’t wait to hear to story.
Had a blast!!!
Hardly surprising to me and many other Vitara owners. I have a 2003 Grand Vitara XL-7 which I have owned for about 4 years now and I am constantly amazed at how good it is off-road. Especially crawling up steep rocky tracks.
Going up slippery surfaces and through mud it feels weirdly modern how you can feel it transfer power from one wheel to another despite using nothing more than a traditional 4WD drivetrain and and long travel suspension.
Honestly, of the 200+ cars I have owned, this vehicle is easily in my top 5 favourites, possibly even #1
I look forward to reading about adventures in Geo Tracking.
I saw two 2nd gen Trackers on the long drive home from Oregon yesterday. Both were 2 doors that made even Paul’s non-XL7 look huge. A great trip!
It’s great to see an update, and to see that everything went well!
Timely too, since we’ve spent the last several days exploring Utah and Nevada, though in our rather sedate minivan. We’re more adventurous than the typical minivan driver regarding off-pavement driving, but we met our match yesterday with a deeply rutted road. At one point, my wife and I agreed that it looked too iffy, so I had to back down a quarter-mile of road. Oh well… that’s the perils of not having a high-clearance vehicle out here!
Looking forward to reading more about your excursion here.
Outstanding! Really looking forward to seeing the updates. A glimpse of a world I have not experienced.
I see some wide smiles in that bunch. Hope to read all about it soon!
OUTSTANDING!
I’M ALL EARS!
1st photo: You look like Doc Brown in Back To The Future–except you’re using a Tracker instead of a DeLorean!
Until I began hanging out at CC, I did not know there was desert in eastern Oregon. If this was known to me many years ago I would have trekked out there myself and carried on eastward into Idaho.
Not going to happen with me and Mrs.M. Unfortunately she doesn’t like long car rides. Guess I’m stuck with some of the dry areas of southern Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Oh how I enjoy the desert!