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The Darien Gap.
The Darien Gap
remains the last gap
in the Pan-American highway from North to South America.
It was ever the major obstacle to one of the last
epic car journeys to be achieved - the trip from
Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.
Now, Patricia Upton has produced an Adventurer's Guide
to Crossing the Darien Gap (details below).
This 40 page guide includes a wealth of information
for the expeditioner -
getting there, shipping, embassies,
paperwork, customs and legal matters,
accommodation, health and medicine, contacts,
sources of information, politics and guerrillas(!),
and of course the route.
Patricia Upton is well qualified to write about the Darien Gap.
Loren Upton has traversed the area (with others)
in 1976, 1977 and 1979,
and with Patricia and others in 1985 - 1987 and 1995.
Between 1985 and 1987 they completed the first
all land crossing of the gap in a 1966 Jeep CJ5
(earlier crossing included floating vehicles down rivers
or through the Atrato Swamp).
In 1995 the Uptons, with Juan Rivas, traversed the gap
using a two wheel drive
Rokon Trail-Breaker
motorcycle.
The guide includes such sobering notes as
- 1976 One expedition member mysteriously shot and killed.
- 1977 Jeep lost in accident in Ecuador.
- 1979 Jeep lost to an unsavory encounter with a Columbian
Park official.
This is plainly not a trip for the novice.
La Tortuga
When Frank and Helen Schreider were contemplating
driving from the Arctic Circle in Alaska
to Tierra del Fuego in South America in the early 1950's
there were three main obstacles -
southern Mexico, southern Costa Rica and eastern Panama
(the Darien Gap) which required shipping by rail or sea.
Consequently the Schreiders chose to use an
Amphibious Jeep (Seep)
so that they could take to the ocean and sail around these problems.
It sounds simple but was very hazardous.
(/Mil/Mil.html)
Early Darien Gap Expeditions
The first vehicular crossing of the Darien Gap
was made in 1959 - 1960
using a Jeep and a Land-Rover.
Upton records that the exact route from
the Panamanian / Columbian border is unknown,
possibly being by boat down the Atrato River.
Around 1962 an expedition sponsored by General Motors
failed in an attempt to take three Corvairs,
surely improbable vehicles, across the gap.
The British Trans-Americas Expedition drove
two Range Rovers from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego in 1972.
This was partly to promote the recently released
Range Rover.
They had numerous mechanical problem, breaking differentials
due to overloading and the use of over-size tyres
on the Darien Gap section. That section was undertaken
as a major expedition with British Army support.
Other Reading
1954-1956
amphibious Jeep sails around the Darien Gap
en-route from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego:
- Helen and Frank Schreider, La Tortuga, 1957.
The Schreiders subsequently took an amphibious jeep around
the islands of Indonesia, The Drums of Tonkin, 1963.
1960
a Land-Rover and a Jeep drive overland from Panama to Columbia:
- Kip Ross, We Drove Panama's Darien Gap,
National Geographic, V119 No3 368-389 March 1961.
- Richard Bevis, Linking the Americas,
The Autocar, 927-929, 1 Dec 1961.
1971-1972
British Trans-Americas expedition,
led by Major John Blashford-Snell, drove two
Range-Rovers
from Alaska to Cape Horn.
A SWB Land Rover
SIIA
also helped over the Darien Gap:
1996
Loren Lee Upton and Patricia Upton have made numerous trips to and
through the Darien Gap
and now publish an invaluable guide
for this most challenging four wheel drive adventure:
- P. E. Upton, Through the Darien Gap, an Adventurer's Guide
for Crossing the Darien Gap of Panama and Columbia,
pp40, 1996.
USA: $13.00, overseas: $17, ($US)
P. E. & L. L. Upton,
P.O. Box 803, Salmon, Idaho 83467, USA
[email]
- L_A11ison
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