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Expedition Lima Tango 2021

Illinois - Colorado - Utah

By Aurimas Adomavicius

August 19^th, 2021

A crew of ten gathered in a quiet Chicago suburb on a sunny and humid morning of June 4th. Four kitted out rigs with knobby tires, lifted suspensions, and powerful LED light banks looked as out of place in Lemont as did Dainius' white gym socks in a pair of Crocks. We weren't brave enough to critique the individual who would feed us throughout the trip.

Expedition Lima Tango 2021 was the third overlanding journey for some, first for others. It would start with a sprint West through the flat farmlands of the Midwest, dump tarmac for choice trails in Colorado, cross the Rockies, creep through some of the most memorable landscapes in Mars Utah, and continue a marathon back to the home state of Illinois. Lima Tango stands for LT, the international ISO2 country code of Lithuania. The crew - seven first generation immigrants, three locally-bred Lithuanian-American kids.

There's an unwritten rule of overlanding which states that one hauls all that is needed to survive and does not leverage comforts offered by civilization - restaurants, showers, etc. These rules, however, only kick in once a trail has been reached, so our trek West through Kansas City and the mind-numbing-straight-as-a-line Interstate 70 was a blur of cornfields, gas station stops, and cracking RedBull cans.

You may know the pilot of the Ford Raptor from my previous overlanding post - the ever-protective, bear spray wielding, airplane flying, first aid applying Dominic. His son Julius and I were passengers, unfortunate witnesses to the ongoing massacre of candy bars, sweet buns, and pastries that took place within the close confines of the vehicle. My judgmental barbs would often interrupt these feasts, followed by guilty looks, mumbled justifications filed under the "vacation" umbrella, and finally the crumbling of a colorful wrapper.

For the record, the crew of Lima Tango did not know what trails Eimis and his gargantuous Arc’teryx hat had selected for the trip. After months of planning (and some good luck, as we later suspected) an intricate python of routes decorated our navigator's iPad screen. He kept it close to his chest, loosely peppering our shortwave radio receivers with clues, wetting our appetite for the wild and the adventures in store. After two days of long-haul trucking, the tires of the Defender, the Ram, the Raptor, and the 4Runner slowly rolled off tarmac and onto a dirt path.

A somber yet bubbly mood takes over when the tires have to be aired out on an overlanding trip. It's a sign that work is over and time to play has come. The unofficial captain of the trip, Dominic jumped out of the Raptor and started deflating the tires of all vehicles. As real friends do, we mostly stood around union-style, nodding approval, and commending "the leader that takes care of the flock". Necessary and violent encouragement was also provided to Dominic on the length of time it was taking to deflate his own tires.

After a few hours of exploration we settled on a wooded hilltop somewhere in the mountains of Colorado. Springy, fragrant, pine covered soil spread in all directions with scattered trees providing shelter from the elements. Vehicles distributed and balanced (so that the tent floors were leveled) around a designated camp site, a ritual of camp building kicked off that more or less stayed the same for the rest of the trip. Marius', our sues-chef's, Ram served as the designated kitchen, hauling industrial grade burners and a hefty tank of propane that would roll out of the truck bed on a custom shelf. You say overkill, we say try cooking a five star meal during a thunderstorm with 30mph winds.

Things became serious the next morning. We packed up camp and headed west through the Rockies and a washed out gorge rimmed with steep slopes and scattered boulders. As the ice melted on the peaks it rushed down through the canyon sometimes forming orderly streams and sometimes occupying the space where our trail was supposed to be. We sloshed through muddy trail after muddy trail wearing wide grins on our faces as a fresh coat of warpaint was applied to our backcountry yachts. After a short bark on the radio, Karl and Eimis stopped us short of an eroded drop on the path - we were on top of a mud puddle of questionable depth with an aggressive approach angle that could potentially scrape up the pristine nose of the brand-spanking-new Defender. To make matters worse, someone had tried to fix the situation by dumping a few logs into the mud...

At this juncture I owe you an explanation of my role during the trip. I like cars, but my expertise as a mechanic doesn't extend beyond tuning cars in Forza Motorsport. I know my way around a kitchen, but we had that station already filled (competitively) with Marius and Dainius and their Godzillagrill 5000. After a short consult I was designated as the war reporter - observe, photograph, record. Armed with my trusty Leica Q2 on the hip and the Canon R5 on my neck I could successfully avoid the dirty labors of warfare: fixing punctured tires, mud diving to rescue clueless campers, or staring contemplatively under the hood of a broken-down pickup truck (yes, Marius' RAM was the only vehicle that flexed its "check engine" light).

If I remember correctly, Karl, Eimis, and the 4Runner decided on a sound strategy of "just gunning it". The Toyota had an undercarriage shield, was decorated with jolly red tow hooks for rescue operations, and had accumulated battle scars on the bodywork - an encounter with a rotten log would just give it character. It was also the first car in the queue and we couldn't be bothered to back up. With a growl of its V6 and whine of the worst gearbox in the world the 4Runner vaulted off the ridge and into the flintstone jacuzzi. Moments of suspense turned into a clatter of metal meeting wood, grippy offroad tires kicking up fountains of mud, and the Toyota emerging on the other side of the mud puddle largely unscathed. It was clear, however, that we would need eyeballs on the undercarriage of the next few vehicles.

Overlanders bring a wealth of recovery equipment - traction boards, tow cables, winches, tire repair kits, the list goes on... We brought Vaidas. Vaidas is a master with an axe, can successfully pick tent locks with a drill (don't ask, but now I need new locks on my tent), and has calves larger than most peoples thighs from the days of professional bicycle racing. The moment that mud puddle registered on his radar, Vaidas was out in the middle of it, knee and elbow deep, spotting obstacles, ripping up logs, and safely guiding the vehicles through. Some say the Defender owes its pristine front bumper to Vaidas.

There's an elegant idiom Vaidas loves to quote in Lithuanian which translates along the lines of "even balls get in the way of poor dancers". Fifteen minutes down the trail we encountered a bottomed out Ford pickup with road tires. The truck was chockfull of kids, dogs, and barbecue equipment. Its clueless owner in a white dress shirt and gray shorts was gunning the accelerator, with each revolution sinking deeper and deeper into the soupy holes etched out by the wheels. Dominic, Vaidas, and Dainius had just washed their muddy shoes and feet in a nearby creek and were now standing on the dry edge of the trail and observing the beached Ford with looks of disgust and creeping realization that a second mud dive was on the menu. We pulled out our virgin rescue equipment and fuddled around for a good half hour with tow cables and traction boards making as much progress as US government in Afghanistan during the last twenty years.

Finally, a fellow mud enthusiast approached the clogged trail from the other end of the Ford truck (we were trying to tow it out backwards). We attached the tow cable to its front hooks, Vaidas installed the traction boards properly under the Ford, and the arduous birthing procedure wrapped up with a rescued family that would never go offroad barbecuing with the white shirt guy ever again. We collectively agreed to dump the rescue equipment and just pack Vaidas in one of the trucks for future trips.

The tallest sand dunes in the United States are not in New Mexico or North Carolina. Sitting at roughly 7,500 feet above sea level the Great Sand Dunes National Park is an unbelievable mountain oasis with more than a 6,000 foot elevation change between the base and its 13,600 foot peak. Our convoy slid around happily on the sand trail while excited shouts were broadcast over the radio. Dominic was especially proud when we met park rangers rocking a brand new Ford Raptor of their own. "We kept breaking all previous vehicles on this terrain until they gave us this one", was the explanation given when we pulled up next to them. I'm certain I saw Dominic slip his phone number to the ranger while I wasn't watching.

Everyone should cross the Rockies at least once with a vehicle, on a trail. A transition West presents staggering scale, elevation changes, and range of flora that contextualizes just how large and varied this country is. The fact that folks crossed these passes with horse and carriage a few hundred years ago slightly blunted our bravado. We were reminded we were in a different world as soon as we continued our trek towards Utah - even though we were "out" of the mountains, elevation still registered at 7,000 feet! As we crept closer to the "Industry" state, the soil shifted in hue to red and we entered what can only be described as Mars.

A couple of hours in, on the trail somewhere in the Dark Canyon Wilderness Area Eimis announced that our evening campsite was... uncertain. We had a few hours of daylight left, but the trail was narrow, the runoffs dense with low bush, and little promise of a vista opening any time soon. Permission to camp in the wilderness largely depends on the designation of the lands - federal lands (BLM) are best as they impose the least restrictions and guarantee that an angry ranch hand will not harass you in the middle of the night with a shotgun. Finding a spot that has vehicle access, a good view, and sits on BLM is an art form.

We pestered Eimis to leak the coordinates of the site he researched so we could look it up for ourselves, but the man worn by the Arcteryx hat kept mum. The intelligence community in the Raptor was performing concurrent landscape forensics through the Gaia app - we could see our trail was running parallel to a large canyon and a little binoculars icon indicated a possible viewpoint. The convoy stopped, Eimis jumped out to scout ahead - there was no visible trail leading to the edge of the canyon and we didn't want to waste time guiding the rigs through only to have them turn around.

Have you camped on the edge of the Grand Canyon? The sheer scale of the drop that opened up in front of us was breathtaking, even if the canyon in question was of slightly lesser renown. We cracked a few beers and sat down on the edge, our shoes kicking up fine red dust with each step. Camp setup could wait, we had to contemplate our mortality and insignificance in witness of such grandeur. Five minutes later, spiritually woke, we unpacked our pistols, rifles, and shotguns for an appetizer of gunpowder, noise, and shattered clay. Even if you're not a gun enthusiast (that brings more firepower than people to an overlanding trip), I recommend a day at an outdoor range to experience the explosive, all-consuming violence that is unleashed from a variety of calibers and platforms. It's cathartic. We scouted out an area sheltered by a rising cliff face and configured a makeshift shooting range, rich with targets at various elevations and distances. The air rang with sounds of freedom, smell of cooking shish kabob blended delicately with burning gunpowder, and I emptied a clip from an AR15 while wearing shorts and flip flops. This country is magical.

In the morning we drank our cheap instant coffee (something I'm planning to fix for the next trip) with a view that no coffee shop can match and packed up camp. As our herd of aluminum buffalo trotted west the landscaped mutated to resemble the planet earth less and less... We drove through national parks, visibly shaken and disgusted by the crowds of packed tourists, mediocre food, and groomed roads. We had just experienced days of solitude, fought off the elements, showered in ice-cold mountain lakes and here was civilization - poking its blunt, mediocre, mundane self into our windshields. We snapped a few pictures, reloaded the libation reserves, and punched through to the safety of snaking trailheads.

A less glamorous, but quintessential piece of gear on an overlanding trip is the portable john. Creating turd minefields may be the favorite past time for us hardcore campers, but Lima Tango is a civilized group with fine tastes, sensitive bottoms, and a combined towing capacity of twenty tons. Each individual and vehicle served a purpose during the journey and the toiletry department was no exception. Because we're a bunch of dudes and because playing military comes with the territory, ranks were established based on seniority and experience (number of overlanding trips attended).

Kids, meet Karl from LA. Karl and his bulging biceps were wearing bullet-proof tactical goggles and there were reports of a custom-built AR-15 tucked somewhere in the 4Runner. Karl, your right-of-passage job is setting up the loo. You will be judged.

Now before you get all equity and inclusion on my ass, Karl was so excited to go on the trip that he volunteered. Or maybe Dominic promoted him as an award for missing the Lima Tango 2020 trip... either way, the job was serious and Karl dove in (hah) with silent resolve and military precision. You see, it's not just about assembling the tent and stabilizing it against wind. An aesthetically pleasing and private location must be chosen so that morning rituals can be carried out while, for example, watching the sun rise on a ravine. A hole must be dug to discard the biodegradable bags and the premises always have to have adequate hand sanitizer, poop bags, wipes, and toilet paper. An unsatisfactory installation would be discussed at length with various penalties at play. As the trip progressed, the kids and Karl built a pebble-decorated path to the toilet that allowed us to cross the local stream without getting our feet wet . The team was properly impressed.

There are too many stories to tell, too many stops to document. We found a trail on a dormant riverbed and ripped through in our trucks pretending we were on a safari. We saw an infinite number of stars in the sky absent of any light pollution. We crawled through intimidating switchbacks with thousand foot drops, loose pebbles shooting out from under our tires. We ate, we drank, we laughed. The last night we coerced our vehicles to the cliff of yet another canyon while forest fires were raging across from us. As night approached winds rose to 60 miles per hour and we had to change the angles of our vehicles and install dampers into the tent struts. We tried to maintain good spirits, but had to quickly pack up for shelter as our foldable kitchen table lifted off like a flying saucer.

To this day Dominic complains about how quickly I fell asleep that night while he was calculating necessary lift forces for the raptor to enter its F22 stage. I woke up in the middle of the night, during a five-second lull of gale force winds, and commented on how the storm must have passed. The next second our vehicle shook and clattered as an invisible battering ram assaulted our unnatural presence on the cliff. Dominic saturated the tent with a stream of expletives and issued punishment for my sound sleep - I would be the one driving back the next day on our despised interstate route back.