Camping has been an American pastime for far longer than anyone reading this website has been alive. However, most of those with RVs tend to take them to manicured campgrounds with facilities, lots of other campers, and a stable connection to the outside world. Last week, I did just the opposite of that by taking a camper out into the wilderness in Washington State where there were no people, no internet, no politics, or anything but my big orange bear-proof capsule, nature, and my own thoughts. Going into that big nothing was easily one of the greatest experiences of my life.
Last week, I finally got to test one of the wildest campers I’ve ever written about. The Mammoth Overland Extinction Level Event trailer, also known as ELE or “Ellie,” was designed to be a bunker on wheels. This is a camper that’s built like a plane because its manufacturer also builds planes. But more than that, it’s just plain silly and fun with its features like a Geiger counter, a bear spray cannon system, submarine-style doors, optional bulletproofing, weapons storage, a drone launch platform, cameras, an observation deck, a sealed cabin with an air-filtration system, and so much more.
ELE was easily the coolest thing I’ve ever slept in and other trailers don’t come close. To be clear, I don’t think the ELE is the best camper ever built, but its mix of genuinely usable features, good build quality, and theme take its cool factor off of the charts.
Yet, this trip turned into way more than just reviewing an orange trailer. It was an adventure I’ve never experienced before.
(Full Disclosure: Mammoth Overland loaned me its very first ELE to use for two nights and three days. Differential Communications, the PR arm behind brands like Mammoth Overland and Overland Expo, loaned me an overland-prepped Ford Ranger. Diff Comms paid for my travel to and from Mammoth Overland’s factory. I paid for my own fuel and provisions.)
If you’re one of our many readers living in a big city or in a flat place like the Midwest or Florida, the idea of just randomly driving out into the wilderness is probably foreign to you. Indeed, if I check a trail map of my home state of Illinois, the only fire roads are at the very southern tip of the state in the beautiful Shawnee National Forest. Even that picturesque forest doesn’t hold a candle to what our friends out West and in the Pacific Northwest can do.
If you’re in a state like Oregon or Washington, you can leave pavement, drive deep into a forest, and perhaps not emerge from the trees for an entire weekend if you wanted to. These states have expansive trail networks spanning far and wide.
There are so many of them that you, like me, might even go an extended period of time without civilization, let alone another human face. You can drive for miles up mountains on trails without any real destinations and on trails that split off from that other trail that also has no real destination. There are just so many trails like that in Washington State alone that I feel like it would take you years to explore them all.
But I didn’t know that when I answered the email from Mammoth Overland. I knew I was going on a solo trip and I figured I wouldn’t be able to talk to my wife or the Autopian team, but I had no real idea what was about to happen.
Yet, I was excited.
Always Moving Forward
I have been living my life pretty much at full throttle since I came out as transgender on Halloween 2014. I sped through my coming out process, got on hormones, donated all of my old clothes, and became “full-time” before January 2015 was even halfway through. I then began navigating my new world at about the same speed, losing nearly all of my friends, dealing with major backlash at work, and upending my relationship with my family simultaneously. And this was a decade ago before most people had even heard of the word “transgender.”
But I never stopped my forward momentum. If anything, I grabbed that steering wheel harder, tore the rearview mirror off of the windshield, and welded the accelerator to the floor. The only path is straight ahead and there is no looking back.
This strategy has resulted in a life I never knew was possible. I advanced in my old IT career, getting high enough that I was coding with Java. I got my motorcycle license and started wrenching on barn-find bikes for fun. Then I closed the gate on the IT path and tried something entirely new when our lovely founders first gave me a chance by letting me onboard at the old site.
When I was 20 I had no idea what life was going to be like at 30. I barely knew what I wanted to do just a couple of days ahead. I felt that there wasn’t a future for me. If you told me that I would spend my late 20s and early 30s traveling the country driving everything from 700 HP pickup trucks to a freaking diesel-electric locomotive, I would have scoffed.
Now, I think that’s just the beginning. I know what I want to do many years out. I want to see if I could get a Smart around the Nürburgring in under 10 minutes. I want to get my private pilot certificate. I want to drive a loaded train, haul with a semi-truck, get into the flight deck of a Boeing 747, and experience as many of the world’s car and motorcycle cultures as possible. I even want to drive a garbage truck just to feel what it is like. There’s a whole world of gasoline, diesel, and electricity out there and I want to experience it. And, maybe, one day I could open the door for other trans people who love vehicles, just as Jason and David did for me.
There’s a downside to all of this. In recent years people like me have become a hot-button political issue. It’s easy to get lost, doom-scrolling through horrifying headlines through terrifying headlines. It sucks that my existence is a contentious subject, even more so that the talking heads rarely ever talk to us.
But, in living a full-throttle life there’s never time to process it because you’re always onto the next thing. Maybe it’s a giant air show, a pretty vintage Plymouth, or spending a weekend with family. Or, maybe that next thing is more bad news. I was recently diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. I’ve been warned about my predisposition to diabetes since I was an early teenager, but somehow I beat the odds, until now. Maybe my genetics caught up with me or maybe I treated myself too poorly during the pandemic. Whatever the reason, it’s here.
My doctor told me it was possible that I could help my condition by treating myself better. So, I started working out, I cut the garbage out of my diet, and I lost 45 pounds. Yet, right before I went on this trip, I was informed that my A1C had skyrocketed. I was rattled. But I didn’t have time as I had a plane to catch the next day.
As I noted in my review of ELE, I started my trip by arriving at the Mammoth Overland factory and meeting the awesome team behind the campers. Then, they tossed me the keys to the gray Ford Ranger outside and gave me coordinates for a few scenic vistas. That was it. For the next three days and two nights, I was entirely on my own on a real choose-my-own-adventure trip.
Most press trips are highly curated. You go to a place, meet up with a bunch of other journalists, and you’re glued to the automaker’s program for the entire trip. There isn’t really any wandering off on your own or changing the parameters of the trip. I have done a solo press trip before when I reviewed the Can-Am Ryker in 2021. In that instance, BRP tossed me a key and told me I had to get from San Francisco to Los Angeles in five days, but it was entirely up to me how I got there. I never left civilization. I always drove on busy roads, stayed near bustling towns and cities, and stayed in populated hotels. I never felt truly alone.
This time, I embraced the solo trip. I opened up an onX trail map and decided to find a large trail system that I could disappear into. I’d never done this before and expected that I’d see plenty of off-roaders out on the trails, but at least I’d be in the wilderness, testing the camper in its natural environment.
Disappearing Into The Green
I chose to keep my adventure roughly in the vicinity of the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. This kept my trip within relatively easy driving distance of Mammoth Overland, which was nice since the Ranger got 10 mpg at best when towing the trailer. But as the U.S. Forest Service says, I chose a place with a lot of history:
The history of Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest claims a colorful past of more than a century of controversy, shifting philosophies, policies or boundaries. Washington state citizens were outraged in 1897 when President Cleveland turned the eight million acres of forest into reserves, keeping them from cutting timber, mining, farming and grazing. Although later legislative action allowed for these activities, it shows how much public sentiment about land use has changed.
In 1905 the forest reserves became part of the newly formed United States Forest Service. In the early years rangers watched over the forest, with their first duty to protect it from fire. Recruits withstood a three-day ordeal to apply for a Forest Service job in the 1900s, having to successfully complete such tasks as: “felling a tree 10 or more inches in diameter with an axe so that it drives a stake into the ground when it falls; tell the boss man what ingredients and how much of each to use in preparing a batch of biscuits; and, pack a horse with all the equipment and personal effects for five days while being timed,” according to a ranger’s letter in the forest’s archives.
In 1908 the Washington reserve was divided into two sections. From Canada south to the Skagit River, the Washington National Forest was established; and from the Skagit River to the Green River the Snoqualmie National Forest. In 1924 the Washington National Forest was renamed the Mt. Baker National Forest. Throughout the years Congress shifted boundaries while forests shifted districts, and in 1973 the Mt. Baker and Snoqualmie National Forests merged.
I entered a trail network from its south end at approximately 3 p.m. on Wednesday. At first, things were as I expected. I parked the truck to take my first picture:
As I did that, some other pickup trucks rolled by, which was as I expected. Yet, as it turns out, those trucks were entering and leaving a quarry near the entrance of the fire road. Once I drove past the operation I stopped seeing vehicles of any kind. My internet waned and then disappeared. Quickly, it was just me, the truck, and the tunes I had saved on a memory card.
I then drove for miles around this mountainous area, taking me about four hours to reach my camping spot for the night, an area overlooking Mt. Baker, the Skagit River, and some communities below. I had to skip a bunch of trails to make it here with the time I had. At least on the first night, I wanted to set down before I lost all sunlight. I was in an unfamiliar place, after all.
By the time I reached camp it had been four hours since I last saw a vehicle, a person, or even a mammal of considerable size. It was as if I entered another realm where it was just me, a Ford Ranger, and an orange camper. I even expected someone else to be camping where I was. I found rock piles where people clearly had fires here in the past, but on that night I was all by myself.
It looked like this area should have been covered by trees, but it appears they were cleared out either by a logging operation or something else. Either way, I was at roughly 3,300 feet to 3,500 feet or so with a perfect view of Mt. Baker to the north.
The Liberation In Solitude
The weird part was that I wasn’t entirely away from civilization. The Skagit River was maybe about a mile down the mountain I was on and I could see cars driving down roads off in the distance. I even got to hear the air raid sirens which notified volunteer firefighters of an emergency. Despite that, I felt like I was in a world all on my own. I was so near civilization, yet so far. It was dead quiet with just me, the camper, and my piss-poor attempt at cooking a steak in a pot.
As the sun approached the horizon I popped a chair on a cliff’s edge and just sat there. For the first time in as long as I could remember I took my foot off of the throttle. I sat in near total silence with just a gentle breeze and nature around me. In that moment there were no other people, no Internet, no news, and nothing else but what felt like myself and infinite time.
I thought about my life until that point and where I wanted it to go. I broke down a bit, realizing that I’m doing something I never thought possible and you know what? This human condition thing is pretty awesome.
Eventually, the sun dipped below the mountains and then disappeared. I heard some animals nearby so I hopped in the camper, closed the doors, and popped out of the roof hatch. That night, I stargazed from ELE’s roof platform, seeing more stars in the dark of night than I’ve seen in the longest of time. I was still alone, too, with nothing but ELE and nature. The solitude further sunk in, but I wasn’t scared. Instead, it was liberating. I got one of the best night’s sleep after retiring to ELE’s bed.
I woke up the next day refreshed, and once again, I was totally alone. I got to watch a mountain sunrise in the cool air surrounded by nature. Eventually, I heard the sound of truck tires hammering their way down the pavement below. People were waking up, going to work, and the state of Washington was gearing up for a warm Thursday. But there I was, now 17 hours since I last saw another person, and my world was different than theirs.
Eventually, I made my way down the trail system and touched pavement some 20 hours since I last saw a face. I didn’t need to do this. I could have driven down the many trails I skipped the night before. Admittedly, I had a strong desire to go swimming, but I didn’t have much luck finding bodies of water on the trails. Somehow, I snaked my way to the Stillaguamish River. It wasn’t quite the picturesque clear mountain lake swim I had dreams of, but I still had a ton of euphoria taking a dip and hiking local trails.
Refreshed, I hit the trails again, driving on the fire roads around Mt. Baker itself before heading off in random directions, passing through a town called Concrete, and wrapping my way around the mountains of the Illabot Peaks. I had no idea where I was going or even what I was doing, but no matter where I went the solitude was refreshing.
It wasn’t all relaxation, either. I was smart enough to download some offline trail maps, which seemed like cheating, but I needed them because the fire roads around Washington aren’t always wide enough for an overland-prepped truck, let alone a camping trailer. Sometimes I encountered trails with so little clearance that trees bashed the roof tent on the Ranger while ELE did some trail clearing of their own.
In one instance, a trail became so tight that I decided to bail before I got stuck someplace without an easy way out. My trail maps only told me that this trail was of moderate difficulty, and while that was true, I was shoving a rig that was far too big somewhere it clearly didn’t belong. Clearance got progressively worse as I drove and I began to think about being forced to reverse the truck and trailer for who knows how long.
But how do you turn a 4×4 truck plus a trailer around when the trail you’re on isn’t even wide enough for the truck alone? Well, I had to get creative. I found a small clearing just large enough to shove ELE into, leaving barely enough space for the Ranger to inch over.
I then jackknifed the trailer and performed my most dangerous U-turn ever. I saw nothing past the Ranger’s hood but sky and I had a margin of just feet before the Ranger would tumble down a mountain. But, I pulled it off. I was so triumphant, I stopped to get myself a snack.
To further illustrate how deep I’ve gotten myself, I found two abandoned vehicles on one of the trails in the area. It looked like this truck broke down and the owner decided to abandon it rather than haul it out miles to the nearest paved road.
Or maybe it was stolen? Either way, the poor Nissan had been there for a while.
The trail maps weren’t trustworthy, either. I drove on the trails all day and decided to make camp next to a body of water. I plotted my route using onX and things seemed easy enough. I found myself passing by more abandoned cars and even a sweet bridge on the way to camp.
Then, one of the trails just ended. My trail map suggested that this trail should have continued, but there was no path forward. The tracks left in the ground by other vehicles suggested that I wasn’t the only one caught up by this.
Once again, I found that there wasn’t enough room for the truck and the trailer to turn around, so I backed ELE right to the edge of a cliff, pushed the truck’s brush guard into a branch, and inched my way out. By the end of my trip I think I had to do maybe five or so frustrating U-turns either because the maps were wrong or I missed a turn.
But, just as the sun disappeared, I reached camp.
Calm Waters And Tranquility
I decided to camp for the night at a place called Texas Pond. This was a known dispersed camping spot with limited infrastructure including a couple of picnic tables, a fire ring, and a pit toilet. It also has some history, from Discover Darrington:
This was once the location of the guard station for the Suiattle-Finney Forest District, now part of the Darrington Ranger District. Tommy Thompson was the first ranger at Texas Pond. A Sub-Ranger Station, or guard station, was built mostly by Tommy. When it was completed in 1908, he married his sweetheart Ella and there they spent their honeymoon and lived until 1914. There was also a large cedar bolt camp at Texas Pond which Tommy and Ella supervised. You can still see the chute which was used to send the cedar bolts down to the Sauk River. A steel wheel was used to control the water level of the pond.
When the water was lowered to drain down the chute, the bolts were pushed through and onward to the Sauk River. Today many of the massive cedar stumps can be seen throughout the pond. One may canoe here to examine things further. In 1913, plans were made to relocate the guard station to the Suiattle River drainage. Since funds were limited, local materials were utilized, Tommy again, building the guard station mostly by himself. His skills as a builder, using logs with dovetail joint corners are a testament to his outdoor skills. This building still stands today in service as a vacation rental.
Despite Texas Pond having a website and a pin on Google Maps I once again found myself alone in the darkness. The solitude hit differently on that night. I wasn’t on top of an overlook with cars buzzing around nearby and towns giving off some light pollution. It was pitch black and there was nothing but the sounds of pond water gently lapping against the shore and nocturnal animals moving about.
It was so dark out that I didn’t even dare try to visit the pit toilet. Thankfully, ELE’s lighting system delivered and I must have been something like a ball of light in the middle of darkness. But once those lights were off, I found myself in the darkest of the dark nights I’ve ever experienced and the only light at all came from the moon and the stars.
I woke up the final morning to catch another sunrise and eventually, I made it right to about a full day without seeing another person. I showered naked in nature, went for a hike, and explored the Texas Pond. And again, there was nothing but my own thoughts and nature, an experience I never had prior to that trip.
I returned the truck as a refreshed Mercedes with a new perspective on the world. I finally let off the gas and took the world in. I tuned out the digital landscape, ignored social media, and detoxified myself from, well, everything. Admittedly, I wasn’t ready to go back. I wanted to be in the wilderness forever.
If you can get a chance, go on a trip by yourself. Leave everything you don’t need behind. Don’t bring a Starlink with you or anything like that. Just find someplace pretty and set your stakes or your RV down. You’ll experience something unforgettable. I can’t wait for the next time I can disappear into the middle of nowhere and find tranquility I’ve never experienced before.
(Images: Author)
I love your attitude, and am happy for your growth. I enjoyed the article.
I’m sure you’ll go further. If you can get there in a vehicle, it’s not wilderness. Next step is to get good boots or shoes and a pack (even a day pack – doesn’t have to involve camping), drive to a trailhead and go for a good long hike.
Thank you for your awesome attitude to life, your willingness to share, and the inspiration to stretch our comfort zones.
Mercedes, while I dont think I’m going to run out and buy an ELE trailer, I really loved this article and what this trip meant for you. I’ve really appreciate the chance to follow your story as it develops. I live in a place where I have the priviledge of seeking out pretty total solitude easily, even within a few hours. It is why I strive to live where I do. I am honestly just super thankful that you got a chance to slow down. Its not always about being the last one to lift.
When there isnt a soul for miles around, and the only judge is yourself, you are just as amazing and beautiful.
I’ve been reading automotive articles since the late 50s. Age 77 now. I have had subscriptions to all of the magazines. Favorites were C&D, R&T and Autoweek. Autopian is the current iteration of what they used to be. Your writing is what pushed me to pay for this site. Thank you!
When my 2 boys were 12 & 14 we took a bushcraft class. The instructions were to show up at a wooded parking lot with a very small pack list. We met the instructor, hiked into the woods and spend the morning and afternoon learning how to make a primitive fire and shelter. Then the instructor said: “see you in the morning” and left. It was a great experience. We had to create a fire, cook dinner and also build shelters to spend the night outside with just branches and leaves for shelter.
Every year I rent a cabin in the woods on my own and go mountain biking. Most days I’ll see no one else at all on the trails. Some days I see no one else at all, which is harder to achieve in the UK than in the US. The evenings I spend fixing the bikes or building wheels with comedy spoke patterns while watching terrible films.
I’ve been doing this for about ten years now, and I lack the language skills to say why it’s so important to me.
I’m not sure about mtn biking in the UK, but in the American west, the possibility of serious injury on the trail is very real. Being solo could have life threatening implications.
Sounds like a nice trip 🙂
Bit much equipment to haul along though, but with stuff free provided by sellers I guess you just go with it.
Reminds me of one time some years ago I just drove my 1967 Citroën DS to the forrests of Finland (from DK) and camped there solo for a couple of days, thinking things over.
(Typical french you can fold the seats flat in the old DS for various lying down activities..)
Glad to hear- what a great experience. Washington really is truly beautiful
Great article, it’s a bit funny to me on the solitude because anyone of a certain age that got to camp as a kid would have a fairly similar experience.
In the 80s my grandparents would take us to campgrounds, one was popular with the whole family but no power, no phones, running water was from a handpump in their camper, the facilities was an outhouse, it was fairly boring for a kid but at my age now I can appreciate how relaxing it must have been for the adults.
And for a few years my dad had bought some property in Maine and was going to build up there, so we spent a few summers driving to this plot in the middle of woods in Maine, clearing it. We had an old school bus converted to a camper but that was for the adults, the kids had to camp it out in the tent. No cell phones, nothing to do but travel games, checkers, chinese checkers if we wanted to get fancy. Up the road was an actual campground that had some arcade cabinets so I’d make the hike there when it was active and could bum some quarters from my Dad. Again, fairly boring for a kid.
At some point I’d like to take a road trip out west, route 66 remnants, monument valley, PCH, but I’ve had my fill of no civilization camping out times when I was younger, also my wife is a big fan of indoor plumbing 🙂
Is this a camper or a fully equipped coffin? I think there has to be a definite difference where a camper you can be erect in a few different ways,. This is not a camper but a trailer that you need to empty to sleep in and nothing else.
I have to admit, “That night, I stargazed from ELE’s roof platform, seeing more stars in the dark of night than I’ve seen in the longest of time,” has a better ring to it than, “I lay on my back, staring intently at the sponge textured white ceiling of my room in the Motel 6.”
Your words might even cause me to abandon my allegiance to comfortable hotel and motel rooms. That is as long as I don’t have to drag massive living spaces like a silly orange trailer, RV or even a big pickup truck down a trail. I admire your travels, personal and practiced, though I can’t get behind your mode of transport.
In my youth, or more youth than at present, I participated in several bicycling trips and tours where we slept in tents. Bicycling has become a bit too minimalist for my taste and RV camping too mechanistic. But I could see an adventure with a tent and a side by side quad, though to be honest I have no idea how to get started on such a pipe dream. Now, I am thinking about it. Thank you for the article, especially if it spurs me to visit the great outdoors once again – minus a Geiger counter and bear cannon.
Yeah I think you’ll be fine in most of the US in a rig w/o a Geiger counter and bear cannon, though depending on where you are going bear spray might not be a good idea.
As far as how to get started on that pipe dream since I just drove by this place https://www.backcountrypowersportsrentals.com/ and here are some places in the general area where you can do back country camping including some that aren’t hike in only. https://thedyrt.com/camping/idaho/near/driggs/with/dispersed
Great article for many reasons, and especially as an introduction to boon docking in the west. It’s fun being 100 miles from anywhere and not seeing another soul for days.
A couple of suggestions:
I have no connection to these companies other than being a satisfied customer.
Another great thing about the Zoleo is that it can also send long form emails, unlike the Garmin inReach which is limited to the standard-length SMS
Glad to hear that you enjoyed your time in the Evergreen State. However you really aren’t supposed to be telling everyone about it, lest we get overrun by people and loose that ability to get away from everyone. It does remind me that I haven’t been up in that area for too long. At one point when working as a merchandiser during college that was in part of my territory and regularly made trips up hwy 20. I’m afraid that it isn’t going to happen this year but I’m definitely putting driving the North Cascades Hwy at the top of the list for next year.
We just got back from a road trip that included YNP and GNP. One comment my wife made while heading too or from GNP was what does everyone do out here? I asked what she meant and she replied that most houses we passed had a large 5th wheel/travel trailer. Of course just about then we passed a “camp ground” that was nothing more than a big parking lot with trailers lined up side by side right next to the road w/o a tree in sight. I just don’t get that kind of “camping”. When we did regularly take our trailer we only stayed in such a place once as a quick overnight on route to the real destination where the campgrounds were in nature and not just a parking lot with hookups. Definitely more nature and solitude in my literal back yard than those parking lots.
Being even just slightly off-season in GNP definitely gets you some solitude, especially when doing the Going to the Moon road where in the first 45 or so miles on the west bound trip we came across 3 other vehicles on the road. Unfortunately it was cloudy so we didn’t get to spend any time just staring up at the stars that night.
Great article, Mercedes! Nothing grants perspective and inner peace like extended time in nature. Given that you’re into adventure and you like getting away from it all, I’m going to make a suggestion: You should try a multi-day river trip in canyon country.
Sure, you’ll need to find an outfitter and pay a guide (unless you have a circle of friends who are river runners), but you get to see amazingly beautiful places, sleep under the most amazing night skies you will ever see, get 100% off the grid, and return with new perspectives about yourself and your place in the world. Even on a group trip, a few minutes walk away from camp grants solitude and quiet.
For me, river trips combine some of the best features of backpacking with more of the creature comforts of car camping (steak and cold beer, for one), combined with adventure at a level you’re comfortable with, whether it’s a float trip with a few minor wave trains like the San Juan River or an adrenaline-infused bomb thru big rapids in places like Cataract Canyon or the huge waves and holes of the Grand Canyon. Sure, there are no hot showers and you’re going to have to poop in a box, but it’s worth it just to fall asleep somewhere practically untouched by people on a comfortable sandy beach under the milky way.
Keep adventuring. Keep writing. Keep on doing you, and thanks for sharing some of it with us.
What a great read! Thanks for sharing your coming out journey too. I’m in Minnesota and can confirm off roading in the midwest is a sham. If you ever get up my way, there are only a handful of off-road parks in the state, but the best is the Iron Range OHV area north of Duluth. The rest are built for ATV’s / side by sides. There are some gravel roads in state forests and a handful of fire roads up north of Lake Superior. Everything else is private property.
Meanwhile, closer to home, my coworker’s parents run Happy Jack in McHenry. Give it a try, you won’t be disappointed. That family knows food.
Keep up the fun articles! You mentioned wanting to drive a loaded semi, why not go get your commercial license and write about it?
I’d recommend getting out and exploring the Superior National Forest a bit more. There’s plenty of minimum maintenance forest roads and two track to find, and even the gravel roads in the area can get you to some pretty remote locations. The last few years I’ve made it a point to go explore the backcountry sites just to the south and southeast of the BWCA. Dispersed camping is allowed throughout the SNF.
Of course there’s no large trail networks like the mountains out west, but there’s still plenty to find. There is a person who’s put together 3 different adventure trail options throughout MN (NEMAT, NCMAT, SEMAT), maps are available with a quick web search.