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Building a Community in the Desert

Building a Community in the Desert

Desert Rendezvous began as a modest effort to build a community by creating opportunities around our shared interests and values. Building a community was a conscious choice back then, and today it requires continued dedication, vision, and consistency in order to remain successful and relevant. Most don’t realize it, but there’s a lot more to organizing these large-scale Rendezvous events than meets the eye. It takes many months of hard work behind the scenes with countless hours coordinating all the different moving parts that make the long weekend what it is. Thanks to our hard-working Crew, and our many good friends within the industry, our Community continues to exceed all expectations. Today, it has grown beyond anything we could have imagined at the campfire a dozen years ago when this was all a dream, a simple conspiracy to just get out and do more.

Initially, our stated goals were quite simple. We all suffer from wanderlust and a desire to Travel, Explore and Live, so enabling more of all three was the only goal initially. Today that focus has evolved and re-aligned with a desire not only to help others get out more, but to help them do it safer through curating knowledge, helping others make informed decisions on outfitting, and sharing destinations.

Our renewed focus as a Community now follows these three simple lines of effort:

Educate. Equip. Explore.

This Desert Rendezvous afforded us the opportunity to fully address these stated goals, with our signature Camp Cooking Competition and Potluck, outstanding educational opportunities provided by true experts, tons of exciting new gear and insane builds on display, trail runs and shenanigans, and a massive raffle supported by our amazing industry partners.

Our Rendezvous events are also unique in the 4WD and overland industry due to the fact that many big names and brands get to attend as regular people. No booths, no work, no pressure, and no exorbitant fees for companies. Just camping. Our events give these good people a much-needed vacation from the exhausting trade show and “fieldlanding” circuit, providing a rare chance to truly relax while re-connecting with why they got into the overland scene in the first place.

Pictures tell the story best, so let’s see what our 11th Annual Desert Rendezvous looked like on the ground this year in Arizona.

Big thanks to Justin Pitcairn, Greg Reynolds, Brian Ismay, Mike Block, Chad De Alva, and Greg Henle for the extra lenses out there capturing this event in photos for you!

The Friday Night BBQ sponsored by American Adventurist featured beef from a local butcher, and fresh baked buns from a nearby bakery. We also had a cord of good quality firewood brought in so folks could enjoy some big campfires. These efforts are part of our long-standing tradition of supporting the local community and we encourage travelers to always buy local when you can because it’s always better!

Our famous Camp Cooking Competition and Potluck on Saturday was a huge success.

People plan for months in advance with special recipes and presentation ideas to try to set themselves apart from the competition. Rules here are simple, cook it out here and try to feed as many people as you can in hopes of winning more votes for best dish. The competitive spirit and fun increases every event, and this was the best year to date for culinary creativity in the Desert!

BIG thanks to everyone who came out and cooked all this great food and shared it with us!

This year’s Camp Cooking Competition winners are:

1st Place: Korean Tacos – Mark aka exploroverland

2nd Place: Pickled Onions – Layne aka TACMEDIC

3rd Place: Discado Norteña – Tim aka Topcat9

Big thanks to Tembo Tusk for sponsoring the prizes for the Camp Cooking Competition!

The Korean Tacos were a big hit, and the presentation was on point. The more people you feed the more votes you’ll get!

The Pickled Onions were as pleasing to the eye as they were to the palate. And let there be no doubt, major style points were scored with attendees for the excellent portability and attention to detail!

Tim killed it with his Discado Norteña game, and the strategic positioning of his serving station in the chow line ensured that everybody could easily stop by on their way through and try his Camp Cooking Competition entry.

 

Doug and Inger’s Swedish Sushi could have been a contender, check out this immaculate presentation!

NOM NOM NOM

Offroad recovery education was provided by Chris Cole, I4WDTA President and the founder of SafeXtract along with I4WDTA Certified Trainer Mike Block of Backroad 4WD Training. These guys are the real deal and having them on deck to share their vast knowledge was a real blessing. We’re grateful that they were able to make the long journey out to join us in Arizona!

A Solar 101 course was provided by Tony Ellis of Adventure Power Solutions with a goal to educate everyone on the finer points of today’s solar power technology options. This was an excellent primer which answered many common misconceptions surrounding use and employment of 12V solar panel setups and mobile energy storage options during long range trips.

Education on Desert Medical Emergencies was provided by emergency medicine expert Tim Reynolds. He covered a wide range of useful first-aid topics for us in laymans terms. Everyone walked away smarter on heat stroke, dehydration, cactus, bites and stings, first aid kits, and how to stop bleeding.

Dogs are guaranteed to enjoy any Rendezvous, and we believe that the number of families with dogs (and kiddos) in attendance is directly related to a successful weekend. Dogs and kids love nothing more than to be outside in the sunshine!

Big thanks to our Crew who really stepped up at check in to make things smooth for those arriving from afar. OG conspiracy member Stuart McWilliams has been holding this down for us for many years, but he was detained elsewhere. We were in the hurt locker without him on duty at check in this year, but the ladies stepped up and made it happen. We could not have been successful at Desert Rendezvous without the administration and hospitality provided at check in by Erika, Paige and Inger.

A huge round of applause for these amazing lady Adventurists!

Every Rendezvous is a showcase of decked out campsites. You’ll also see virtually every type of overland rig and many different ways of modifying them. You can easily spend the whole weekend wandering from camp to camp just talking to people and looking at all the great builds and various gear that people choose to equip themselves and their vehicles with.

This is how you slam dunk the Best Campsite Competition!

The Raffle this year was incredible! Even with all the supply chain pain and other challenges of the past couple years, the industry support for our Rendezvous events never faltered. These companies understand who we are and what we do, and the importance of their support year after year cannot be overstated. Remember them the next time you’re in the market for something because they are Adventurists just like you!

BIG thanks to Badass Tents in San Diego! Not only did they come out with family and join us for the long weekend, but they also stepped up in a major way by providing the Grand Prize for the event – a new roof top tent! TOTALLY BADASS!

Every event we try to recognize one of our guys. John Rhoades is our MVP for Desert Rendezvous 2022 because this little guy outworked all of us. If you enjoyed the big campfires and fresh burgers we provided, John was the driving force behind all of those efforts. THANKS JOHN!

We also want to recognize Cris Mateski, we buried his garage in raffle prizes for several months and he made sure they got out to the desert for the event. Here’s a photo of Cris working, which is only possible because he didn’t see the camera coming around. THANKS CRIS!

This Community attracts the very best people. At the end of the day, it really is the people and the relationships here that make our group what it is. With so many great people bringing their passion and talents to the table, I’m always blown away by the creative content I see after our events. Check out 395jnky and Adrian Overlands on YouTube for their recap of this event and other great content! Maybe I’ll get our American Adenturist YouTube channel moving once I’m fully “retired”…

The gifted artists behind our beautifully painted rocks – thank you!

Many roads led to this spot in the desert, and people drive from all over America to attend our events each year. In 2022, we had attendees on the ground in Arizona from as far away as Maryland, Texas, the Midwest, and Washington. That in and of itself is pretty humbling.

This year I was moved by how many grateful people stopped by on Sunday to say thank you and shake my hand on the way out of our camp, applauding the professionalism and integrity of our organization. Their character was evident after everyone had left as we stayed behind to inspect the area before turning it back over to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Not a single piece of trash was found, and every campfire had been completely erased. It was as if they were never there.

Proceeds from this event will benefit the California Offroad Vehicle Association as American Adventurist becomes a Platinum Level Sponsor to help them fight the good fight to protect and preserve off-road recreation and access on public lands throughout California. Why? Because Closure isn’t the Answer, and they need our help. Because if California falls, there will be more Locked Gates Ahead nationwide. We’ll talk more about land use issues that affect all of us in a future article.

For now, the immediate task is to keep enriching lives through fellowship, education, Tread Lightly! ethics, and the resilience that comes with increased knowledge and confidence. We’re continuing to raise the bar to make this community of Adventurists stronger so thanks for joining us here and we hope to see you at Mountain Rendezvous in California!

Big thanks to all our partners!

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Stuck In The Snow

Recently, a young couple from Louisiana found themselves stuck in the snow in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. They were miles down a closed road and completely unprepared for the situation they were in. A series of poor choices had led them to their predicament and their experience is a great reminder of how an adventure can turn into a scary suffer fest in short order.

This young couple who are probably not old enough to buy a beer had a simple enough plan: A vehicle-based trip to see Colorado and snow for the first time. They packed what they thought was appropriate gear for winter camping, and with blind faith in their GPS, they set off to try a reach a lake nestled in a high mountain valley. Unfortunately for them, that lake happened to be miles down a closed road, where the snowpack is currently deeper than a man is tall and on the night this happened, a place where overnight lows would be recorded in negative degrees Fahrenheit.

It’s easy enough to put the pieces together on how this all went down. In the summertime, there is a Forest Service campground at this lake that shows up on Google Maps, so it’s easy to ask your phone to guide you to the campground. Yet in the winter, the FS roads that lead to this campground are groomed for use as Nordic Skiing Trails. Where the FS roads tie into roads that are plowed, the groomers will make big berms of snow with a snowcat to block access.  Yet to someone who has never seen snow, those berms could look fun to try and drive over, and a Nordic trail could look like a snowpacked road to drive on – so why not send it?  Afterall, Google says this is the way.  Given that there hasn’t been any new snow in the past few weeks, the Nordic Trails were rock solid, so once our couple had their vehicle on the trails, driving on them was no challenge at all. 

Down the trail they went. After a few miles, Google told them to take a right turn onto another road that was also groomed as a trail.  After completing this turn they could see their destination – a picturesque mountain lake in the wintertime. In the evening light, it had to look brilliant and I can only imagine their excitement from seeing their destination combined with the thrill of driving on snowpacked trails for the first time.  Yet Google’s next direction would quickly kill their vibe.

Google indicated a left turn off of the Nordic trail into undisturbed snow. Without a second’s pause, our couple followed directions and went full send right off the rock-solid Nordic trail and into deep snow. They made it almost an entire truck length before they ran out of momentum and their truck settled into the snowpack. They were stuck.

The couple caught a HUGE break in that they happened to be stuck somewhere there was cell service. Their first few calls were to local towing companies, none of which could help them out, given where they were stuck. They made more calls – it’s unclear how many, but they did call 911 at some point before they were eventually put in touch with the local Nordic association, who is responsible for grooming and maintaining the trails that the couple had driven on. The couple indicated to the Nordic association that they were planning on camping at the lake, so they were not desperate for a rescue.  Yet, the Nordic association wanted to get these folks out of their hair sooner than later (and repair all of the damage their vehicle did to the skiing trails), so a plan was made for a night recovery.  Late that night, a Nordic association snowcat arrived on scene where a number of sobering things became instantly apparent.

First, the couple was severely lacking on proper cold weather clothing and camping gear.  The female was wearing flannel cotton pajama pants and a cotton camo hoody when we arrived. Far too little insulation for temperatures that would soon be in the negative. She indicated that while waiting for us to arrive that they had setup their tent and camping gear, but were still “way too cold” even in their sleeping bags, so they sheltered in their truck while waiting for help to arrive.

Second, was that their vehicle was not very stuck. Neither of them had a clue about driving in this environment, or vehicle recovery techniques if mobility became an issue. There was no winch, nor any recovery gear onboard. Their tires were still at street pressure. They did not have a shovel, and there had subsequently been no attempt to dig any snow out from around the vehicle or behind the tires. Nothing had been used to add traction to the stuck equation. It’s as if they became stuck and their first move was to give up and call for help.

Third, they were completely blind to the signage, berms, and the other people they passed along the route who all communicated information that what they were doing was ultimately a really bad idea. I get it – if you’ve never seen snow before in your life, a Nordic trail could certainly be construed as a road surface.  I’ll give them that one, but the berms, signs, and skiers all saying NO, STOP, WTF are you doing? Those are much harder to ignore. 

The sad part is that saving stuck vehicles from Nordic Trails is something happens at least a couple of times a season.  For various reasons that all boil down to complete ignorance, people decide to drive their vehicles down Nordic Trails where they all eventually get stuck, and have to be rescued. Every single time this happens, it requires the driver of the vehicle to turn off a paved and plowed state highway, and really commit to get their vehicle over a berm or snowbank and onto a Nordic trail.

Recovery gear used: Factor 55 Hitch Link 2.0 and soft shackle. Warn static strap with a WLL of 7,200 pounds, well in excess of the tacoma’s GVWR. Dead Man Off-Road ruggedized shackle used on the tiller mount of the cat.

In the case of our Louisiana couple, their experience is a great example of how choices can get you into a serious bind in short order. Make no mistake about it – this couple was very lucky in that they got stuck somewhere there was cell coverage and happened to be someplace regularly visited by other folks.  But what if they became stuck somewhere where there wasn’t cell coverage or other people?

There are all sorts of what-if scenarios that we can sand table here. But rather than flesh out a thousand potentials, I’ll leave this one with a few key things that our couple could have done better or at all:

  1. Quit while you are ahead / do not over commit:  This couple went sailing right past all kinds of warning signs that a reasonable person would recognize, instead choosing to place all of their trust in where their GPS was leading them. You need to keep your head up, and constantly assess where you are, and what you’re about to drive down.  If something doesn’t look like a good idea, can you self-rescue or get back out? Are you prepared to shelter in place if you can’t get back out while you’re waiting for help to arrive?

  2. Communications: This couple got so lucky they had cell service where they became stuck. They had no other form of communication, and they didn’t have a ready answer to the question of “what would you have done if you couldn’t call for help?” So have more than one way to communicate. Radio, Satellite Communications Device, a buddy in a second vehicle, have something. Be mindful of where you last had cell service / satellite coverage / access to a repeater too.

  3. Outside help: Did anyone know where this couple was headed, or when to expect them to check in? Don’t become the next Aron Ralston. Make sure someone knows where you’re headed, and when you’ll come up for air. 911 isn’t always able to ride to the rescue at a moments notice, and SAR responses can take hours or days to find you.  Are you prepared to wait for help to arrive?

  4. Proper kit for the adventure: A cotton hoody from Bass Pro is not proper winter attire. Enough said.  Five minutes of internet research could have clued this couple in on the appropriate winter attire and camping kit they should have packed for their adventure.  The weather can change too, so make sure you’re kitted for any change in the weather, and stocked with enough supplies to hang out for an extra day or two.


Exploring the world by vehicle is awesome, but just as our vehicles can take us so many places they too can get us into one hell of a suffer fest if we are ignorant of our planning, preparation, skills, and current situation.