christian_hazel@motortrend.com
“What is Ultimate Adventure?” A question a child may ask, but not a childish question. Although Ultimate Adventure, or “UA” as it’s affectionately referred to, is a very well-known event in the off-road world, now more than two decades after its inception the actual history behind the event may be a bit murky and shadowed. When was the first one? Has the event always been the same? Did it develop out of some sort of competition? Is it in the same place every year? Well, let’s get into answering those questions and more.
Ultimate Adventure was the brainchild of Cole Quinnell. Cole started as a lowly editorial assistant at Hot Rod magazine before working his way up to staff level. While a Hot Rod staffer, it was Cole who came up with the idea for Hot Rod’s Power Tour, which to this day is still one of the most wildly successful automotive events in the world. After leaving Hot Rod to launch a hands-on off-road book called 4x4 Power, Cole eventually landed at the helm of Petersen’s 4-Wheel & Off-Road magazine. It was there in mid-to-late 1999 that Cole had the idea to just get a bunch of 4x4 friends rallied to stitch together a bunch of really cool off-road trails into one 7-10–day adventure. The invite list for that first UA was pretty informal, with no application or selection process. Cole and ad sales guy Brian Cox contacted a bunch of hands-on off-roading advertisers as well as readers and some selected friends. Other than some vehicle requirements that seem pretty tame by today’s standards, there were no hard and fast rules, as you can read about below.
So, hop on board to see the why, where, and whodathunk behind the world’s oldest and best-known off-road experiential event of its kind. Let’s fire up the Way Back machine and take a look at the history of Ultimate Adventure from its inception back in 1999 to today.
UA1999
Compared to nowadays, the first UA was quite informal, with participants getting a verbal invite and showing up together at the prearranged meeting point of Apache Junction, Arizona. The route wasn’t kept a secret and we had a lot more locals swinging by to watch and wheel with us on our trail days. We didn’t have any specific vehicle requirements, with a few of our participants running 33s or front limited-slip differentials in lieu of the now-requisite minimum tire size of 35s and front and rear locker mandate. Heck, even trailers were allowed with a couple of the participants towing their junk behind motorhomes. The first UA in 1999 kicked off on September 11 and ran a full 10 days (travel to and from the event counted as event days) with the familiar cadence of one road day followed by a trail day, then another road day as we headed to the next trail, and so on.
Route Recap: Apache Junction, Arizona (Upper Ajax trail); Las Cruces, New Mexico (Tabasco Twister); Farmington, New Mexico (Waterfalls trail); Montrose, Colorado (Die Trying trail)
Official Vehicle: It wasn’t an official build, but Cole Quinnell (driver) and Christian Hazel (passenger) were up front in Cole’s ’76 GMC K10 on 36-inch Swampers.
Notable Notes: It was so hot that Tech Editor John Cappa’s sneakers melted on the floor of his V-8–powered ’46 CJ-2A. Trent McGee drove his super sweet pumpkin-orange Chevy Blazer, and our local trail leader on the last trail day broke 100 yards into Die Trying and abandoned us to go into town for parts so we finished the trail on our own.
UA2001
Although we planned on doing another UA as soon as we had completed the first one, we didn’t get around to doing a second UA until 2001. By then it had become a formal magazine event with paid sponsorships, rules, and vehicle requirements. In fact, those vehicle requirements with very, very few exceptions are still in place today. Although it was somewhat higher-level, exotic stuff for the time, by today’s standard there are some factory Jeep offerings that if you added a winch, you’d be UA-eligible! This year also marked a change in staffing, with Cole Quinnell having been promoted to Editorial Director and Rick Péwé coming on board as the new Editor of . The planning for the UA2001 event was handled by Cole, Rick, and Christian Hazel and with a new “no-trailers” rule, a strict vehicle inspection on check-in day for
