SWITZERLAND BY RV Touring the Beautiful Land of Cheese and Chocolate by Gary Wescott     photos by Gary & Monika Wescott GOOGLE MAP Europeans have known the advantages of renting a motorhome and touring for decades. Every year hundreds come to enjoy our National Parks and campgrounds. We wondered, how easy would it be to fly […]

KHANDYGA—Return to UST NERA March 12, 1996 As the dates from the last Up-Date indicate, there was a span of twelve days between our first arrival in Khandyga and our departure for Yakutsk. Arriving at the truck staging station in Khandyga, we pulled into a guarded compound in which a dozen transport trucks sat in the […]

UST NERA TO KHANDYGA February 28, 1996 In the remote mountains of Northeastern Siberia, between the Cherskogo range and the Verkhoyanskiy range, there are valleys which, for reasons better explained by meteorologists, experience cold beyond imagination. As the dry Arctic air rushes down from the Laptev Sea, temperatures can plummet below -60° F for weeks. At […]

BAJA BACKROAD ADVENTURES   The Turtle Expedition Returns to Some of their Favorite Camps Author: Gary Wescott / Photos: Gary and Monika Wescott GOOGLE MAP BAJA !! The Spanish word for “lower”, (as in Baja California, Mexico), is used with familiarity to identify that rugged and often misunderstood finger of desert and mountains poking a […]

THE JOHN MUIR TRAIL A Long-Held Dream Fulfilled It is the kind of day you could expect in the Yosemite Valley in late July. The crisp air of an electric-blue sky embraces the smoky perfume of early morning campfires. We slurp down hot coffee and a bowl of granola, shoulder our Kelty Tioga packs, adjust […]

The Russian Adventure An Introduction The Turtle Expedition Team Gary Wescott studied photography and journalism at the University of San Diego, and began traveling in 1969. He created The Turtle Expedition, Unltd. in 1972. Since then, his photographs and articles have been published in fifteen countries in ten languages on six continents. His unique style […]

SUSUMAN TO UST NERA February 25, 1996 In the morning, with the temperature up to -35°F (-37°C), we slurped sweet tea and greasy chicken soup in the company workers’ dimly lit cafeteria. Monika befriended the head cook, who was delighted to meet a female foreigner, surely the first in her life. She filled up our thermoses […]

MAGADAN TO SUSUMAN February 24, 1996 At last, we are on the road!! In convoy with two six-wheel drive Kamazes hauling frozen chicken and other supplies to the mining camps of Ust Nera, we headed west out of Magadan on the “Road of Bones”, so called because of the number of prisoners who died in […]

MAGADAN FEBRUARY  1996 Author’s Note: Communication has been difficult to impossible since we arrived in Magadan. The heart of the problem has been the Russian phone system. E-mail depends on a reliable clean phone connection, preferably designed to handle data at reasonable speeds. In the case of Eastern Siberia, the preferred e-mail phone connection seems […]

MAGADAN JANUARY 1996 The trailer was relatively easy to load, using the front hitch to push it in. To insert the truck, it was necessary to remove the front vent on the camper’s roof, as well as the Yakima roof rack and the Packasport roof-top storage boxes. Then, with the tires aired down to about 10 psi, […]