Sportsmobile Ultimate Adventure Vehicle: In a Van, Down In the River
The "Sportsmobile Ultimate Adventure Vehicle" is built out from a full-sized Ford van, complete with raised 4x4 chassis and pop-up bed a la the VW Vanagon.
Sportsmobile vans are custom jobbers, which they're more than happy to build out for you (they also do non-offroad customs), but they're also willing to sell you plans for building the same getup yourself, should you prove handy with blowtorch and welder. The idea behind using a van is to convert the interior space into something more livable than a truck, without losing the off-road capabilities like an RV.
Company Page [Sportsmobile.com] (Thanks, Bug!)
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I installed a lift kit and big tires on my Jeep and didn't really have to weld anything. Lifting a van for camping and offroad looks like a fun project. Here is a site that has more vans like pictured above: http://www.glinx.com/~sbest/vandavid.htm
Get the f#*king van out of the river, assholes. Cheap inner tube, old sneakers, bathing suit, beer. Float down stream quietly, wave at the fishermen as you float by and use the van to ferry you on dry land back up to do it again. Float on water don't make mud, damn.
Old air cooled, wimpy, stock VW bus has embarassed a hell of a lot of 4X4s over the years. I sold one to buy a Power Wagon once and the 4x4 could not get up the the same stuff that the VW didn't have a problem with. Oh, and the VW had a 1700+ pound payload capacity. I could also push start it by myself.
On driving I'm just a wierdo who happens to perfer having my CG as low as it can get. Anytime I'm driving something with the CG below 12 inches is just shits and giggles 'cause it means racing and track time. I could roll a lifted van over on its side leaving a 7-11 parking lot, no thanks. Drifting in 6th gear with your ass 1" off the pavement and 22 other crazies trying to catch you is fun.
Since you mentioned these vans your more or less obligated to check out EarthRoamer (www.earthroamer.com), especially their newest one: the smaller XV-JP. Yum. I'd take a two year leave (make that ten) and travel the contitents with one of those had I owned one, srpinkled with hiking throughout. Just wondering about gasoline range when your in the middle of nowhere and possible enviromental issues but *drool*.
Otherwise you could probably get a Land Rover and fix it with a stick and a pack of gum should it ever fail you comparing to special parts needed for the Jeep.
Yet more antisocial crap. Not content with tearing up the countryside, these gits feel the need to
churn up a river bed. Way to go.
Those Jeep camper tops at .earthroamer. are way cool. I didn't know such a thing existed.
And the state should definitely have driven a bunch of heavy equipment up there and installed a bridge to protect the rock bottom of the water crossing from the dangerous rubber tires.
Okay, they're cool vehicles, but streambeds are fragile environments, and there's a lot going on in them. Driving on them is bad enough if the stream's going over bare rock, but in the kind of sandy area pictured, you're going to be shredding everything six or eight inches below the original streambed level.
I really think water crossings are the most environmentally responsible way to get occasional traffic across water. And the ones I have crossed have flat rocks placed on the bottom to prevent digging into the soft streambed - they would become quickly impassable otherwise. When this stream floods it won't have bridge abutments forcing a velocity increase in the water flow and churning up more silt than the wet crossing ever did. Just take a look under the bridges you cross every day to see what I mean.
Okay, I can see that.
"The Great Divide Race is a self-supported, solo competition following the 2,490-mile Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. Traversing Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, the route demands over 200,000 feet of climbing along it's length. Competitors carry all equipment necessary to negotiate the backcountry, restocking on food and other supplies from the small towns along the route."
http://www.greatdividerace.com/
So what's tougher, to buy something for a trip, or to train for it?