october 2, 2021
I'm going to hate myself for writing this one out, because I have a long-form piece I should be doing about it instead (for an actual magazine!) but oh well. I'll write that later.
This truck, very much glowing with life here, is now dead. It was a pretty bone-stock '92 4Runner; the owner apparently forgot to change/check the oil, and the engine ended up seizing sometime not long after this shot. It was already pretty rough when we took it out to Mt. Baker; I think it had well over 200,000 miles and was, definitionally, a $3000 truck (remember when we had those?)
But this truck was plenty for what we did. All I can keep thinking about after the Pilot TrailSport drive (and the Kia Sportage X-Pro drive, and the Subaru Solterra drive, and going to the Rebelle Rally, and the Lexus LX600 drive, etc, etc) is that Americans spend so much money trying to get outdoors that they're missing the entire point of it. There are so few places in America that require a ridiculously overbuilt vehicle to get to. The Rebelle is the closest I've seen to a genuinely challenging series of forest service roads, and I accomplished the hardest parts of their trails with a god damn minivan. Short of Moab or the Rubicon - places specifically meant to challenge off-road vehicles - pretty much any $3,000 4Runner with decent, 30"+ off-road tires can traverse almost any blm/forest service trail I've ever encountered.
But I don't see a lot of people hyping up $3000 Toyotas, because it feels like the gear has become the main point, and the actual hobby has become secondary. I can see the case being made in most hobbies for better gear - nicer lenses DO help you get better photos! - but overlanding is supposed to be a challenge for the driver, which means working with your limits, not just buying a truck that's so ridiculously overbuilt it can handle literally any conditions in North America, and yet - that's what all these manufacturers keep selling.
So you end up with a bunch of queers in shitty Toyotas climbing mountains and a bunch of mid-level managers with brand-new, shiny OEM trail-runners scared to drive on dirt because they have six years of payments left. A lot of subcultures are like this nowadays, I suppose, but overlanding is just darkly hilarious to ruin - the entire point is the world is free, and you can see it for cheap. Instead we've got $50,000 SUVs with all-terrains no one can afford to actually put some dents in.
