Overland Trip: Cave Creek to Verde River to Dugas, Arizona (Video)

Overland Trip: Cave Creek to Verde River to Dugas, Arizona (Video)

[caption id="attachment_16674" align="alignright" width="290"] Beautiful area to overland, particularly in the spring when flowers are blooming![/caption] Had an awesome trip exploring the area North and East of Phoenix with some friends! This was the Dodge Ram Overland Rig's first time out in a rocky trail type of scenario, and I've got to say, it did surprisingly well, even with the factory springs and the 35" tires we were able to fit after a bit of trimming. The extra width of the full-size truck, and the pop-up camper that sticks several inches out either side PAST the 80" bed of the truck, certainly made a fun challenge to get it through a tight trail like this, especially with lots of overgrowth due to the rains...but after years of tent-camping...climbing into my own memory foam bed at night, having a place to cook and make my morning coffee out of the wind, and enjoying the heater at night, makes it all worthwhile to me. We enjoyed great friends, found some AWESOME camp sites, had a few beers, tasted some amazing food, shared some fun stories, and gave each other the support we needed to get our rigs through this area with the least amount of damage possible.  I call that a VERY successful trip, and looking forward to going back soon.  -K [embed]https://youtu.be/LBXrNBSGxPY[/embed] Transcription: Hey guys, it's Kevin from Kevin's Offroad here. Doing a little bit of rock crawling with the RAM. This is the first trip I've ever taken it on anything that's kind of like a washee type of road. So it's not too bad but definitely it is a little bit of a challenge just trying to get this giant camper width-wise through some of these low hanging branches and trees and stuff, but our RAM's doing good and real happy with the suspension setup. Oddly enough it's just factory but there's enough of a load on there that it actually smooths out nicely. We're near Seven Springs just north and east of Phoenix here. Very very pretty and it's a beautiful time of year to be out here. Anyway we'll check back in later, thanks for dropping by. KevinsOffroad.com Blog. is where you can find more stuff like this. Thanks, Cya. [embed]https://youtu.be/hc_MSR2mSk8[/embed] Transcription: So my job is to get this large Graham and Camper through this area, little wash here. It's pretty okay as long as I don't hit one of those outcroppings that would play hell with the aluminum siding on the camper but these branches also are definitely low hanging. I plan to build a little XO cage around the skin of the camper eventually so that things like that won't be a big deal and probably put some cables going down to the front bumper to fend off big trees and branches and stuff like that. But anyway for now thing is actually doing really well. Doing a little forward low idling here and very pretty through this area here. Seven Springs road, Northeast of Phoenix is where we are at. Very very scenic. [embed]https://youtu.be/rKhmdgskS_s[/embed] Transcription: Hey guys, it's Kevin checking in with you again. Still out messing around on Seven Springs. I think you can see that, there you go. Seven Springs Road here Northeast of Phoenix. Super super pretty here. Let me stick you out the window. This is a little valley we're kinda through and super green out here. Nice time of year to be out in the desert. The temperatures unbeatable it's like 65 degrees today or maybe 60 or something like that. Super super pretty, nice and clear blue skies and just a nice cool breeze. So in say two weeks or for certain two months not gonna be a hell of a lot of fun to be out here, but right now it's quite lovely. So anyway definitely come check this area out here. We're on forest road 16 and we're headed northeast and out of the Phoenix area. So I'll check back in with you but definitely do come check this out if you can. Pick like a March date or something to come. March or April where you can enjoy all the beautiful blooming flowers and so on. Thanks for dropping by. KevinsOffroad.com Blog is where you can find more videos like this and we'll catch up with your real soon. Take care. Travel safe. [embed]https://youtu.be/uyMLaNuwnuQ[/embed] Transcription: Hey guys, it's Kevin here. We are just finishing up another exciting weekend. Decided to take out the old Dodge Ram Ramper. Haven't figured out what I'm going to call this thing yet. But basically it's an old utility bed on a long bed standard cab Dodge Pickup. 12-valve Cummins, Automatic and Dana 60 front, Dana 70 rear, with a pop-up camper on the back of it, kind of modified to fit a little bit. The thing did really good in fact, way better than I expected it to. This was something I was supposed to take my Jeep on but the Jeep had an issue with the motor well. So I decided you know the roads aren't going to be that bad I'll just go ahead and take the RAM. Well basically I got an Arizona car wash out of the deal. Basically just brush scrapping along the sides, both sides of the camper, pulling at the same time. We had to build the road in four or five different places this morning. We left our campsite at 6:30 to get back on the road and home at a decent hour. Thank God we did because it's already almost 3 o'clock and we haven't even made it back to the paved road yet. The road today was awful. Everybody got rocker panel damage other than one TJ that's running about a four-inch lift. Everybody got rear bumper damage. Everybody got some undercarriage damage. I got some utility box  damage and rocker panel damage. It was pretty gnarly, we had to build some sections, move some boulders out of the way that had fallen from up above and so on. But here, good timing, going through a little ghost town of Dugas here. I think it's technically not a ghost town, it's probably more like a collaboration of ranches at this point in time, but used to be a lot more than what it is today. There's some cool buildings that I would love to check out on the day that I was not so sore and tired of driving and ready to go home. So anyway, I just wanted to check in with you guys tell you what was going on. And show you a little bit about how capable this just a pickup truck with a camper shell on the back could possibly be for somebody. You know Overland comes in a lot of different forms and functions and ya this rig I was not at all concerned about. You know scratch the paint whatever which is a really huge nice bonus you can get into stuff that you wouldn't normally get into. And yeah, I'm pretty sure I damaged the skin on the camper a little bit but I don't think it's bad, probably nothing some epoxy can't fix. So anyway that's about all I have for you for today. But, I'd love to hear about excursions that you too are doing. Feel free to post a link to your YouTube video of your own at the bottom of the comments down here. And let me know if you've ever explored Forest Route 16 which heads basically north and east out of Phoenix and drop shit at the Childs [Irving] Power Plant which is where the very hot springs are. Let me know if you've ever done that road and whether you come back on the bypass that gets you into Dugas which is the road we just built or whether you came out a different way. I'm interesting to know what the other side looks like. Anyway take good care guys, thanks for tuning in. For more fun adventures like this check out KevinsOffroad.com Blog. We'll catch up with you real soon. Thanks again.