24-minute YouTube video by Mountain State Overland
Jason says “It’s been a big kind of goal in my career to make a story, to get this far west and then tell the story along the way.”

DAY ONE – RESTING UP
Their first day is spent on their friend Jim Browning’s amazing property on a stream in a canyon outside Lake City. They need their rest because the following day they’ll be tackling the Alpine Loop.
Dinner is the Jalapeno version of their favorite burger. Jason explains “There’s nothing like making it over an open fire.” The recipe for crunch wrap sauce is shared as they prepare. Note the pentagonal fold; the edges will be sealed with cheese.
“This is definitely a fun meal to cook if you’re got time and especially if you’ve got a couple people to help cook… We’ve got three people eating, two people cooking, one guy on camera and we are having the times of our life here in Lake City Colorado.”

DAY TWO – THE ALPINE LOOP
“We’ve got a good team.” But at 10,000 ft. Jason confesses to a little nervousness about the unknown.
Eric says “I don’t really know what to expect besides the videos that we’ve seen and the pictures that we’ve seen and the research we’ve done.”
He finds driving the Jeep instead of the Tacoma “is quite fun honestly, it feels like a high power Go-Kart with the diesel in there. It’s got a lot of torque, but it’s been a lot of fun just driving it offroad. It feels more natural on gravel roads than it does on pavement and I’m sure that’s what it’s designed for.”
Ben explains that Eric was banging on his camper, telling him to get up. Ben describes the setting and the effect of the running water. Says he doesn’t know a lot about the alpine loop except that “From what I gather, it’s alpine and it’s a loop and that’s pretty cool.”
He anticipates dirt and tires and rocks and going up in the mountains and maybe some loops.
Jason describes that day’s experience as “being in Yosemite with NOBODY.”

AT THE TOP OF CINNAMON PASS
Ben introduces the location. “The elevation is 12,640 feet. It’s pretty wild. The vista is unbelievable, it goes on for miles and miles and miles.”


AT ENGINEER PASS
Eric is clearly blown away. “We just came over the hill … it’s pretty awesome, you get to see both sides of the pass. It feels freaking great.”

BACK AT LAKE CITY
They kick back and reflect on the experience.
Jason feels he’s been waiting ten years to do this. “It was wild, definitely had to pay attention. At one point I was driving along with my GoPro recording off the hood of the truck out of the windshield; and I was holding my cell phone out the window; but it’s also a thousand-foot drop.”
Ben was ‘taken aback’ by some of the heights. “It was pretty impressive that big climb coming up Engineer, when you’re going up to basically what was that ‘0 Point’ when it looks like you’re climbing into the sky and there’s no road in front of you, you’re just climbing sheer drop; so you’re looking around like ‘Well hopefully this where the road goes.’

Eric adds “None of the content that I’ve ever seen captured everything else that was around, that’s what captivated me the most – not necessarily the drive itself, but like everything that all the content on the internet doesn’t capture which is the tunnel views that are out to your left or out to your right as you’re driving those roads.”
Jason says “I think Hermit Pass was a lot of fun and kind of a precursor for us to say ‘okay we kind of know what to expect’ [it was an appetizer]. It was a good precursor I think to what to expect for today and honestly when we were climbing to the top of Hermit Pass – and you can see some of this in the Drone footage – it started to get really slippy, you know, really loose; the tires were spinning and the road was very narrow.”

Ben thinks the time after this trip is going to fly. “I don’t want it to end. I’m not ready. I don’t want to go home.”

https://youtu.be/22lJhkOvS6E?si=zVgUh8FskOWr-m9j