90 Days Of Camping

Alpine Lakes Wilderness, Mount Daniel, Spade Lake, Washington, tent, Cascades

One of many awesome campsites this summer!

Our 12,000 mile route from Colorado to Alaska and back. Red is the way up; blue the way back.

In June 2016 my wife Claudia and I took off on a summer-long road trip. Over the next 3 months or so we drove over 12,000 miles (19,000+ km), from Colorado to Nevada, northern California, Oregon, Washington, the Canadian Rockies, Yukon, Alaska, and back. In order to keep costs down – and just for the fun of it – we camped as much as possible along the way; in fact, over the course of the three months on the road we rented hotel rooms only four times, and stayed with relatives twice. So, we ended up camping about 90 days in total, either in the back of our Toyota Tundra or in a tent while backpacking.

I made a point of taking a camping picture [almost] every day, and here are all these photos. Some of them are creative and some are purely documentary, but as a whole I think they give a good impression of how we lived over the summer, and how much outdoor time we enjoyed!

>> SEE ALL THE PHOTOS HERE! <<

19 thoughts on “90 Days Of Camping

  1. Bravo! I know there’s a lot of boredom baked into a big trip with long drives and mixed weather, but I wish I’d done it. This is a lovely collection. Thanks.

    1. Thanks Mark! Yeah quite a bit of down time on this trip, but one thing that was fun was setting up all these timer-selfie shots and running back to my seat, pretending to look natural! Haha…

  2. Very nice trip. To the “All it takes is some poking around to find lesser used forest roads or side roads” I’d add that you need a vehicle that can get you there. I’ve gone down or up countless of those myself but a regular van/car has limits, how many of those sites were 4WD only?

    1. Hi Jernej, yes, you are correct, I failed to consider/mention that 4WD certainly came in handy often. About a dozen of the car camp spots definitely required higher clearance 4WD to reach, sometimes pretty white-knuckled even in the Tundra!

  3. The camping pictures alone are awesome. As I wrote in another place most of these spots have a very special meaning for me, so today I could forget my work and spend the time daydreaming about visiting these spots myself again. Thanks.

    Unfortunately if you are visiting from overseas you are out of luck with a rental car, you are never allowed to use any side/forest/gravel roads etc., so it is a huge advantage if you can use your ” custom ” made truck.

    1. I have read suggestions to contact local and Canadian only firms, with the details of where you want to go, as they may be more lenient. Hertz and Avis are useless. They advertise 4wd as being good for traction and then don’t allow them to be driven other than on paved roads. Also you could try Budget, they are the best in Australia. We are similar to Canada, in that many national parks have unpaved roads. Some companies will allow unpaved roads but only in a 4wd. If all else fails find the cheapest rent a wreck type place.

      1. Thanks Ken,

        sometimes it is possible, but the LDW terms are very unfavourable, you pay a high insurance fee and in the end you have to pay all kinds of possible damage. Wreck type places may be a solution if you will spend several month there.
        This is no problem in the Canadian N.P. in the Rocky Mountains as all roads are paved. Kluane N.P. in the Yukon is not crossed by any road at all but passed by the Haines road and Alaska Highway so you have to start your hikes from one of these roads. No, the problem are access roads to hikes in the provincial areas of B.C., Alberta and the Yukon.

        1. Hi Ken and Uwe, yes it certainly was advantageous to have our own 4WD up there; about a dozen of the car camp spots we found required fairly high-clearance 4WD on rough dirt roads.

  4. Hi,
    I just noticed that your pictures are chosen again for the new Weingarten calendar “Berge versetzen 2017” -congratulations. Hopefully we can see some pictures from this years trip in the 2018 calendar.

  5. Whoa, what a great collection, Jack. I looked at all of the camping images, wonderful spots and excellent creativity in mixing up the shots. Awesome job. I loved those 2 camp chairs you and Claudia had, can you let us know what they were?

    Thanks again for sharing these images. Also, sounds like you had little/no issues with the Tundra.

    1. Thanks Paul! Yeah those chairs are great, really comfortable. They’re currently in storage for the winter, but next time I’m there I’ll try to remember to look what brand they are.

      The Tundra was a champ as usual. We did have an engine light go on right before we got to Anchorage. Had to beg the only dealership there to fit us in their busy schedule; turns out a replaced gas cap fixed it. Otherwise no issues!

  6. WOW! Incredible trip and photos. I love your pictures of Washington – just stunning mountain scenery. My husband and I would like to road trip there next summer. We drove from Colorado to Alaska and back as well this past summer. North of Jasper is so big and remote, it’s incredible how long it takes to reach Alaska. And looks like you had an excellent view of Denali – those are hard to come by! I hope more pictures are coming from your trip??

    1. Thanks Ashley! Yeah, I really like the mountains in Washington and I had a tough time leaving there; part of me wanted to just stay there all summer. But there was so much else to see too! But I definitely want to spent more time in the Cascades.

      I’m pretty much done with all my photos from our trip! Maybe in a year or so I’ll go back through my archives and find some hidden gems I passed up on the first edit. Seems to always work that way!

  7. These pics are great & it’s so fun to see where you two were each step of the trip. Almost as fun as seeing you during your (way too short!) stop in Seattle! Xo

  8. Inspiring!
    It’s so easy to get stuck in the day-to-day grind of work, elementary school, home life…I am so happy to see that you and Claudia are living a life with so much outdoor time. 90 days of camping in one summer, fabulous. Let’s get some backcountry boarding in this winter?

    I have my eye of your Aurora pics. I just wish I had more wall space, you’re hanging all over our house!

    1. Hey, Drew, I thought you graduated elementary school by now? Hehe…

      Yeah, let’s definitely get out for some turns this winter. I hope to make it down to Ouray from Crested Butte quite a bit this winter. And be sure to let us know if you guys make it up this way!

  9. Fantastic stuff. Really inspirational! I’ve got a couple of wild camping trips and a mountain backpacking trip under my belt and this is making just itch to get out there again!

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