Bringing back the spirit: Exploration Quarterly Field Camps

Fifteen years later we still get these emails.

“The Overland Expo is great, but we miss the first ones!”

“The Expo is still fun, but the camaraderie isn’t there any more.”

“Lots more stuff to look at and buy, but less community spirit.”

Of course Roseann and I were thrilled—and more than a bit stunned—at the success of the event she started in 2009. In fact it eventually became just too big for her to manage, and its very success hindered our own travels, which was not the plan . . .

Now we are back to our roots in journalism, field arts, exploration, and conservation with the debut of Exploration Quarterly, which encapsulates all our passions.

And yet, we still miss those first few Overland Expos too, and our original family—both the attendees who still write us and our core team: Graham Jackson, the Camel Trophy team members, the vendors who took a chance on us.

So we’ve decided to bring that spirit with the Exploration Quarterly Field Camps. Our first will be held in one of our favorite spots, the private Aravaipa Canyon Ranch. The group will be limited to a maximum of 45—thus making even the first Expo seem big. Our activities are going to span a range including skills clinics, equipment demonstrations and samples, vehicle topics including driving and recovery (the ranch has miles of private roads), natural-history hikes, and campfire happy hours. Our director of training for the Expo, Graham Jackson, will be there, as will Camel Trophy veteran Jim West, who is well-known to double as a stand-up comedian. We’re looking for old friends and new to join us. The signup link is right here.

I’ll have lots of equipment on hand to try—for example a Freedom Recovery becket kit to rig a three-to-one winch system:

Also an interesting new compact wall tent from White Duck:

And many other new products. There are sure to be many cool vehicles.

Given the beautiful location, we’ll be keeping a Swarovski spotting scope trained on the cliffs to look for bighorn sheep (and, later, planets). And you never know what other wildlife we might find.

We still have spots left. Please join Roseann and me for the start of a new tradition!

View the full article