Overlanding on longest uninterrupted dirt road in the lower 48

[Mort]

Hello, we are fresh back from our Magruder corridor trip. For those that are not aware of the Magruder Corridore, it is the longest uninterrupted dirt road without services in the continental USA. The distance of the corridore is 113 miles over three mountain passes with a total elevation gain of 12000 feet. The distance between L2 charging points is 150 miles. This unrelenting road is full of grapefruit size boulders and burnt out forests, mountain passes, followed by deep forested beatiful river valleys. The Magruder devides the Frank Church Wilderness of no return and the Bitteroot Selway wilderness area togheter composing the largest remaining intact forest in the lower 48. The road transits from Elk City Idaho to Darby Montana.
In the middle of this route you find yourself 50 miles to the South, 100 miles to the North, 70 miles to the East and 60 miles to the West from any pavement!

This is the exact type of travel that the petro heads and fossil foolies say cannot be compleated in an EV.

To make the point that it is indeed possible, we further complicated the issue by adding a 2000 pound loaded 8 foot Alaskan cabover to the mix and hit the road in a STANDARD RANGE XLT Lightning.
Adding to the challenge I also swapped out the stock tires for the biggest set of BF Goodrich KO3‘s that you can fit on a non leveled or lifted Lightning.

After driving 518 miles from Port Townsend Washington to the South Fork Junction RV park and lodge, just West of Elk City Idaho, we plugged into a NMEA 14-50 and ran the AC, refers, lighting, and other consumers all night in the cabover, waking up to a 100% charged battery. After a delicious Idaho style Magruder chicken fried steak breakfast In the cafe we set out for the challenge. At approximately 20 miles the dirt road begins and climbs steeply around 4000 feet. At this point the road junctions with the Burnt Knob road that is adorned with a sine reading “ 4x4 high clearance vehicles only” Disregarding that we attempted the road but without airbags or a lift the long wheel base and limited clearance with the camper quickly made us think better of it. Returning to the main corridore we proceeded the remaining 50 miles to the Selway river valley circling around a fire on Magruder mountain, we descended down to the river and found a beautiful river side camp ground to spend the night. After two 8000 foot mountain passes we ended the day with 60% battery capacity, and some 95 miles of estimated range, leaving 80 miles of distance to the next charger. The following morning we were inundated by smoke with only a couple hundred feet of visibility an inversion had brought all the smoke down into the valley and we decided to get out of there. From here the road follows the Selway river before climbing to 6200 feet at Nez Perce pass and the border entering Montana.
After a 3000 foot decent and 60 miles of driving we had compleated the Magruder corridore and then some, arriving at the level 2 chargers in Hamilton Montana with 10% remaining charge and 14 miles of range.

Magruder
MPKW 1.5
2% climate
90% route
6% acsessories
2% exterior temperature.

Overall trip

1.4 MPKW
1252.6 miles

I was unable to catch any images but the looks on hard core wheeling peoples faces when they saw a EV truck 70 miles in the middle of nowhere was priceless! I can only imagine that this challenged every assumption that they had made over the past four years.

Don’t let any one tell you that the Lightning Is not capable of overlanding, there is no overlanding trip with a greater distance in the lower 48.

 

[21st Century Truck]

Hello, we are fresh back from our Magruder corridor trip. For those that are not aware of the Magruder Corridore, it is the longest uninterrupted dirt road without services in the continental USA. The distance of the corridore is 113 miles over three mountain passes with a total elevation gain of 12000 feet. The distance between L2 charging points is 150 miles. This unrelenting road is full of grapefruit size boulders and burnt out forests, mountain passes, followed by deep forested beatiful river valleys. The Magruder devides the Frank Church Wilderness of no return and the Bitteroot Selway wilderness area togheter composing the largest remaining intact forest in the lower 48. The road transits from Elk City Idaho to Darby Montana.
In the middle of this route you find yourself 50 miles to the South, 100 miles to the North, 70 miles to the East and 60 miles to the West from any pavement!

This is the exact type of travel that the petro heads and fossil foolies say cannot be compleated in an EV.

To make the point that it is indeed possible, we further complicated the issue by adding a 2000 pound loaded 8 foot Alaskan cabover to the mix and hit the road in a STANDARD RANGE XLT Lightning.
Adding to the challenge I also swapped out the stock tires for the biggest set of BF Goodrich KO3‘s that you can fit on a non leveled or lifted Lightning.

After driving 518 miles from Port Townsend Washington to the South Fork Junction RV park and lodge, just West of Elk City Idaho, we plugged into a NMEA 14-50 and ran the AC, refers, lighting, and other consumers all night in the cabover, waking up to a 100% charged battery. After a delicious Idaho style Magruder chicken fried steak breakfast In the cafe we set out for the challenge. At approximately 20 miles the dirt road begins and climbs steeply around 4000 feet. At this point the road junctions with the Burnt Knob road that is adorned with a sine reading “ 4x4 high clearance vehicles only” Disregarding that we attempted the road but without airbags or a lift the long wheel base and limited clearance with the camper quickly made us think better of it. Returning to the main corridore we proceeded the remaining 50 miles to the Selway river valley circling around a fire on Magruder mountain, we descended down to the river and found a beautiful river side camp ground to spend the night. After two 8000 foot mountain passes we ended the day with 60% battery capacity, and some 95 miles of estimated range, leaving 80 miles of distance to the next charger. The following morning we were inundated by smoke with only a couple hundred feet of visibility an inversion had brought all the smoke down into the valley and we decided to get out of there. From here the road follows the Selway river before climbing to 6200 feet at Nez Perce pass and the border entering Montana.
After a 3000 foot decent and 60 miles of driving we had compleated the Magruder corridore and then some, arriving at the level 2 chargers in Hamilton Montana with 10% remaining charge and 14 miles of range.

Magruder
MPKW 1.5
2% climate
90% route
6% acsessories
2% exterior temperature.

Overall trip

1.4 MPKW
1252.6 miles

I was unable to catch any images but the looks on hard core wheeling peoples faces when they saw a EV truck 70 miles in the middle of nowhere was priceless! I can only imagine that this challenged every assumption that they had made over the past four years.

Don’t let any one tell you that the Lightning I snot capable of overlanding, there is no trip with a greater distance in the lower 48.

I gotta do this!

 

[hturnerfamily]

reminds me of all the IRT "Ice Road Truckers" that I've been watching for the last several days on ROKU... crazy places people say you 'can't' go... and you do it very quietly...

 

[Rthol21]

Hello, we are fresh back from our Magruder corridor trip. For those that are not aware of the Magruder Corridore, it is the longest uninterrupted dirt road without services in the continental USA. The distance of the corridore is 113 miles over three mountain passes with a total elevation gain of 12000 feet. The distance between L2 charging points is 150 miles. This unrelenting road is full of grapefruit size boulders and burnt out forests, mountain passes, followed by deep forested beatiful river valleys. The Magruder devides the Frank Church Wilderness of no return and the Bitteroot Selway wilderness area togheter composing the largest remaining intact forest in the lower 48. The road transits from Elk City Idaho to Darby Montana.
In the middle of this route you find yourself 50 miles to the South, 100 miles to the North, 70 miles to the East and 60 miles to the West from any pavement!

This is the exact type of travel that the petro heads and fossil foolies say cannot be compleated in an EV.

To make the point that it is indeed possible, we further complicated the issue by adding a 2000 pound loaded 8 foot Alaskan cabover to the mix and hit the road in a STANDARD RANGE XLT Lightning.
Adding to the challenge I also swapped out the stock tires for the biggest set of BF Goodrich KO3‘s that you can fit on a non leveled or lifted Lightning.

After driving 518 miles from Port Townsend Washington to the South Fork Junction RV park and lodge, just West of Elk City Idaho, we plugged into a NMEA 14-50 and ran the AC, refers, lighting, and other consumers all night in the cabover, waking up to a 100% charged battery. After a delicious Idaho style Magruder chicken fried steak breakfast In the cafe we set out for the challenge. At approximately 20 miles the dirt road begins and climbs steeply around 4000 feet. At this point the road junctions with the Burnt Knob road that is adorned with a sine reading “ 4x4 high clearance vehicles only” Disregarding that we attempted the road but without airbags or a lift the long wheel base and limited clearance with the camper quickly made us think better of it. Returning to the main corridore we proceeded the remaining 50 miles to the Selway river valley circling around a fire on Magruder mountain, we descended down to the river and found a beautiful river side camp ground to spend the night. After two 8000 foot mountain passes we ended the day with 60% battery capacity, and some 95 miles of estimated range, leaving 80 miles of distance to the next charger. The following morning we were inundated by smoke with only a couple hundred feet of visibility an inversion had brought all the smoke down into the valley and we decided to get out of there. From here the road follows the Selway river before climbing to 6200 feet at Nez Perce pass and the border entering Montana.
After a 3000 foot decent and 60 miles of driving we had compleated the Magruder corridore and then some, arriving at the level 2 chargers in Hamilton Montana with 10% remaining charge and 14 miles of range.

Magruder
MPKW 1.5
2% climate
90% route
6% acsessories
2% exterior temperature.

Overall trip

1.4 MPKW
1252.6 miles

I was unable to catch any images but the looks on hard core wheeling peoples faces when they saw a EV truck 70 miles in the middle of nowhere was priceless! I can only imagine that this challenged every assumption that they had made over the past four years.

Don’t let any one tell you that the Lightning Is not capable of overlanding, there is no overlanding trip with a greater distance in the lower 48.

Thanks for sharing!

not too far away from my hometown of Moscow, would love to mine back up to Idaho on a road trip for some fun on the mountain roads. Not quite the same country driving down here San Diego.

 

[Ford Motor Company]

Hello, we are fresh back from our Magruder corridor trip. For those that are not aware of the Magruder Corridore, it is the longest uninterrupted dirt road without services in the continental USA. The distance of the corridore is 113 miles over three mountain passes with a total elevation gain of 12000 feet. The distance between L2 charging points is 150 miles. This unrelenting road is full of grapefruit size boulders and burnt out forests, mountain passes, followed by deep forested beatiful river valleys. The Magruder devides the Frank Church Wilderness of no return and the Bitteroot Selway wilderness area togheter composing the largest remaining intact forest in the lower 48. The road transits from Elk City Idaho to Darby Montana.
In the middle of this route you find yourself 50 miles to the South, 100 miles to the North, 70 miles to the East and 60 miles to the West from any pavement!

This is the exact type of travel that the petro heads and fossil foolies say cannot be compleated in an EV.

To make the point that it is indeed possible, we further complicated the issue by adding a 2000 pound loaded 8 foot Alaskan cabover to the mix and hit the road in a STANDARD RANGE XLT Lightning.
Adding to the challenge I also swapped out the stock tires for the biggest set of BF Goodrich KO3‘s that you can fit on a non leveled or lifted Lightning.

After driving 518 miles from Port Townsend Washington to the South Fork Junction RV park and lodge, just West of Elk City Idaho, we plugged into a NMEA 14-50 and ran the AC, refers, lighting, and other consumers all night in the cabover, waking up to a 100% charged battery. After a delicious Idaho style Magruder chicken fried steak breakfast In the cafe we set out for the challenge. At approximately 20 miles the dirt road begins and climbs steeply around 4000 feet. At this point the road junctions with the Burnt Knob road that is adorned with a sine reading “ 4x4 high clearance vehicles only” Disregarding that we attempted the road but without airbags or a lift the long wheel base and limited clearance with the camper quickly made us think better of it. Returning to the main corridore we proceeded the remaining 50 miles to the Selway river valley circling around a fire on Magruder mountain, we descended down to the river and found a beautiful river side camp ground to spend the night. After two 8000 foot mountain passes we ended the day with 60% battery capacity, and some 95 miles of estimated range, leaving 80 miles of distance to the next charger. The following morning we were inundated by smoke with only a couple hundred feet of visibility an inversion had brought all the smoke down into the valley and we decided to get out of there. From here the road follows the Selway river before climbing to 6200 feet at Nez Perce pass and the border entering Montana.
After a 3000 foot decent and 60 miles of driving we had compleated the Magruder corridore and then some, arriving at the level 2 chargers in Hamilton Montana with 10% remaining charge and 14 miles of range.

Magruder
MPKW 1.5
2% climate
90% route
6% acsessories
2% exterior temperature.

Overall trip

1.4 MPKW
1252.6 miles

I was unable to catch any images but the looks on hard core wheeling peoples faces when they saw a EV truck 70 miles in the middle of nowhere was priceless! I can only imagine that this challenged every assumption that they had made over the past four years.

Don’t let any one tell you that the Lightning Is not capable of overlanding, there is no overlanding trip with a greater distance in the lower 48.

We love to see the adventures our Ford Family embarks on with the F-150 Lightning! That's a stunning Lightning as well! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Adventureboy]

Excellent story and glad to see folks testing the boundaries and making it happen. Running down to 10% in the backcountry would have made me nervous.

 

[MaintGrl]

WOW, Matthew Thank you for sharing your exploration! Loved all the pictures. I'm pretty much stuck @ home and long to "get Away" as I used to do. With the words and pictures you posted I'm able to live vicariously through your trip. So glad it all turned out good, (Coming from another XLT SR Lighting owner.) Thank you again...
I've been trough some hairy parts of the Sierras In an 06 Taco 4x4, so hearing that the Lightning did this is wonderful news . .

 

[Ducktape]

Hello, we are fresh back from our Magruder corridor trip. For those that are not aware of the Magruder Corridore, it is the longest uninterrupted dirt road without services in the continental USA. The distance of the corridore is 113 miles over three mountain passes with a total elevation gain of 12000 feet. The distance between L2 charging points is 150 miles. This unrelenting road is full of grapefruit size boulders and burnt out forests, mountain passes, followed by deep forested beatiful river valleys. The Magruder devides the Frank Church Wilderness of no return and the Bitteroot Selway wilderness area togheter composing the largest remaining intact forest in the lower 48. The road transits from Elk City Idaho to Darby Montana.
In the middle of this route you find yourself 50 miles to the South, 100 miles to the North, 70 miles to the East and 60 miles to the West from any pavement!

This is the exact type of travel that the petro heads and fossil foolies say cannot be compleated in an EV.

To make the point that it is indeed possible, we further complicated the issue by adding a 2000 pound loaded 8 foot Alaskan cabover to the mix and hit the road in a STANDARD RANGE XLT Lightning.
Adding to the challenge I also swapped out the stock tires for the biggest set of BF Goodrich KO3‘s that you can fit on a non leveled or lifted Lightning.

After driving 518 miles from Port Townsend Washington to the South Fork Junction RV park and lodge, just West of Elk City Idaho, we plugged into a NMEA 14-50 and ran the AC, refers, lighting, and other consumers all night in the cabover, waking up to a 100% charged battery. After a delicious Idaho style Magruder chicken fried steak breakfast In the cafe we set out for the challenge. At approximately 20 miles the dirt road begins and climbs steeply around 4000 feet. At this point the road junctions with the Burnt Knob road that is adorned with a sine reading “ 4x4 high clearance vehicles only” Disregarding that we attempted the road but without airbags or a lift the long wheel base and limited clearance with the camper quickly made us think better of it. Returning to the main corridore we proceeded the remaining 50 miles to the Selway river valley circling around a fire on Magruder mountain, we descended down to the river and found a beautiful river side camp ground to spend the night. After two 8000 foot mountain passes we ended the day with 60% battery capacity, and some 95 miles of estimated range, leaving 80 miles of distance to the next charger. The following morning we were inundated by smoke with only a couple hundred feet of visibility an inversion had brought all the smoke down into the valley and we decided to get out of there. From here the road follows the Selway river before climbing to 6200 feet at Nez Perce pass and the border entering Montana.
After a 3000 foot decent and 60 miles of driving we had compleated the Magruder corridore and then some, arriving at the level 2 chargers in Hamilton Montana with 10% remaining charge and 14 miles of range.

Magruder
MPKW 1.5
2% climate
90% route
6% acsessories
2% exterior temperature.

Overall trip

1.4 MPKW
1252.6 miles

I was unable to catch any images but the looks on hard core wheeling peoples faces when they saw a EV truck 70 miles in the middle of nowhere was priceless! I can only imagine that this challenged every assumption that they had made over the past four years.

Don’t let any one tell you that the Lightning Is not capable of overlanding, there is no overlanding trip with a greater distance in the lower 48.

Hello, we are fresh back from our Magruder corridor trip. For those that are not aware of the Magruder Corridore, it is the longest uninterrupted dirt road without services in the continental USA. The distance of the corridore is 113 miles over three mountain passes with a total elevation gain of 12000 feet. The distance between L2 charging points is 150 miles. This unrelenting road is full of grapefruit size boulders and burnt out forests, mountain passes, followed by deep forested beatiful river valleys. The Magruder devides the Frank Church Wilderness of no return and the Bitteroot Selway wilderness area togheter composing the largest remaining intact forest in the lower 48. The road transits from Elk City Idaho to Darby Montana.
In the middle of this route you find yourself 50 miles to the South, 100 miles to the North, 70 miles to the East and 60 miles to the West from any pavement!

This is the exact type of travel that the petro heads and fossil foolies say cannot be compleated in an EV.

To make the point that it is indeed possible, we further complicated the issue by adding a 2000 pound loaded 8 foot Alaskan cabover to the mix and hit the road in a STANDARD RANGE XLT Lightning.
Adding to the challenge I also swapped out the stock tires for the biggest set of BF Goodrich KO3‘s that you can fit on a non leveled or lifted Lightning.

After driving 518 miles from Port Townsend Washington to the South Fork Junction RV park and lodge, just West of Elk City Idaho, we plugged into a NMEA 14-50 and ran the AC, refers, lighting, and other consumers all night in the cabover, waking up to a 100% charged battery. After a delicious Idaho style Magruder chicken fried steak breakfast In the cafe we set out for the challenge. At approximately 20 miles the dirt road begins and climbs steeply around 4000 feet. At this point the road junctions with the Burnt Knob road that is adorned with a sine reading “ 4x4 high clearance vehicles only” Disregarding that we attempted the road but without airbags or a lift the long wheel base and limited clearance with the camper quickly made us think better of it. Returning to the main corridore we proceeded the remaining 50 miles to the Selway river valley circling around a fire on Magruder mountain, we descended down to the river and found a beautiful river side camp ground to spend the night. After two 8000 foot mountain passes we ended the day with 60% battery capacity, and some 95 miles of estimated range, leaving 80 miles of distance to the next charger. The following morning we were inundated by smoke with only a couple hundred feet of visibility an inversion had brought all the smoke down into the valley and we decided to get out of there. From here the road follows the Selway river before climbing to 6200 feet at Nez Perce pass and the border entering Montana.
After a 3000 foot decent and 60 miles of driving we had compleated the Magruder corridore and then some, arriving at the level 2 chargers in Hamilton Montana with 10% remaining charge and 14 miles of range.

Magruder
MPKW 1.5
2% climate
90% route
6% acsessories
2% exterior temperature.

Overall trip

1.4 MPKW
1252.6 miles

I was unable to catch any images but the looks on hard core wheeling peoples faces when they saw a EV truck 70 miles in the middle of nowhere was priceless! I can only imagine that this challenged every assumption that they had made over the past four years.

Don’t let any one tell you that the Lightning Is not capable of overlanding, there is no overlanding trip with a greater distance in the lower 48.

What an adventure!
Just out of curiosity: you did not drive too fast on the dirt road, I suspect? Nobody pushing you either. Air resistance is EV's biggest fiend. The 2000 lb cabover did not hurt, it might have made the truck more streamlined even.
Cool demonstration that physics is a bitch, ICE diehards!

 

[Mort]

Because the road is a single lane, steep, narrow and rocky the average speed is around 15 MPH, the average transit time is around 8 hours.
wind resistance is not an issue at all but the elevation gain is. Additionally the KO3’s reduce range by around 8% with the added rolling resistance from the camper. However I would not take the stock grabbers on this road.

 

[Mort]

Excellent story and glad to see folks testing the boundaries and making it happen. Running down to 10% in the backcountry would have made me nervous.

Well technically you are not in the backcountry, for the last 21 miles you are on highway 93 passing through Darby On route to Hamilton. So we were leaving the backcountry with around 35 miles of range, or somewhere around 23%.

 

[lurker]

Wow, that sounds a lot of fun (but stress inducing, too!). Made me smile thinking about the adventure, I would love to do that.

Did you have a contingency plan for the Lightning running out of juice? Did you also have a satellite capable phone like the iPhone 15 etc in case?

 

[Oneand0]

Way to go!! Proven wrong, all the nay sayers!! Hats off to you.

 

[Mort]

Wow, that sounds a lot of fun (but stress inducing, too!). Made me smile thinking about the adventure, I would love to do that.

Did you have a contingency plan for the Lightning running out of juice? Did you also have a satellite capable phone like the iPhone 15 etc in case?

Bringing a generator or a support vehicle would have spit in the face of what the vehicle is capable of.
The concept was test proven last winter in the oylimpic mountains during temperatures hovering around 32. We did a 130 mile two night trip with 10k of elevation gain and got home with 9%
I knew we could do it in the warmer summer environment.
We did bring along a starlink. And there was pleanty of traffic that in a pinch could tow the lightning and gain back range through regen.
The biggest concern was battery conditioning on the cold mornings, if you run the vehicle for pro power the battery conditioning cannot be defeated. We lost over 5% on a cold morning cooking breakfast making ICE and runing the Starlink. Normally these tasks would only consume 1% or less.

 

[bmw325_num99]

I am VERY impressed with both this trip and your Pacific Coast Highway trip. This Macgruder trip, especially, wows me! I thought I was the "EVs can do it offroad too" torchbearer but you have me beat by a lot. Very very well done!!

 

[Mort]

I am VERY impressed with both this trip and your Pacific Coast Highway trip. This Macgruder trip, especially, wows me! I thought I was the "EVs can do it offroad too" torchbearer but you have me beat by a lot. Very very well done!!

Nah, we’re all a part of the proving grounds! We pave the way so the whimps, ludites and ninnies can dip their toes in the water later and report to mommy that it’s not so bad!

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