In this episode I head into the Bear River Range up in the northeastern corner of Utah (and brushing southern Idaho) with my buddy Jake and his Tacoma. This place is seriously underrated—rugged ridgelines, alpine forest, and the kind of back roads where you never really know what’s around the next bend. We hit muddy crossings, deal with slick approaches, and I do what I always do: pick the harder line first. After a few attempts I’d dug the ruts deep enough that the truck wanted to push straight, and I slid off the edge into a nasty hole with my rear basically hanging off. To keep it controlled, we winched me out using Jake’s truck, and it was a perfect example of why a winch is such a game-changer. From there we rolled into a quiet, tucked-away camp spot—grassy, sheltered by trees, and with a creek nearby—then got another solid day of trail exploring. We pushed through snowbanks, stopped at a scenic river overlook for lunch, and took a somber walk to a memorial site tied to a 1953 C-46 plane crash. It’s a mix of adventure, scenery, and real-world recovery work—Episode 1 of 2.