UPDATE: Many folks probably haven’t seen this older post …

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UPDATED January 20, 2014: Here’s a jeep trip in 1955 that was undertaken after one of the trip’s members read the below article in National Geographic.

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Originally Posted October 23, 2013: 

This spot is now a couple hundred feet under water. Learn more about the Crossing of the Fathers here: http://www.onlineutah.com/crossinghistory.shtml

In 1949 a joint expedition between the National Geographic Society and New York Explorers Club decided to be the first explorers, by vehicle, to enter the Escalante area of Utah. Accompanying the explorers were two jeeps and, fortunately for us, cameras. Their story, “The First Motor Sortie into Escalante Land”, appeared in the September 1949 issue (pages 169-204).

You can find a variety of inexpensive issues of the September 1949 National Geographic Magazine on eBay. If you are a fan of Southern Utah, this is a neat article.

For the first part of the trip, which began in Cannonville, Utah, the explorers traveled along part of the Cottonwood Road route we drove this past March. Their first big find was the arch we now know as the Grovesnor Arch, which the explorers officially named after the President of the National Geographic Society. What surprised me was that there are pictures showing the group on top of the arch with flags as if they’d conquered the moon. To be fair, I imagine it was a pretty challenging climb.

Note the explorers at the top of the Grosvenor arch.

From there, the party headed south as far as the Colorado River to an area now flooded by Lake Powell. So, some of the areas in the photos are no longer possible to see.

Below are only the photos that include the red and yellow CJ-2As that accompanied the explorers:

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The new issue of the Dispatcher Magazine has been released. Jim Allen’s article on the Jeep Creep and other prototypes in the late 1950s was very interesting (something I’ve never documented), as were the restoration articles on the Tonka Surreys and the Jeepster Convertible. As always, there’s lots of good stuff in this issue!

Tom McCahill reviews the reviewed the Jeepster and Station Wagon in the January 1950 issue of Mechanic Illustrated . He liked the new four-wheel-drive wagon, but was less a fan of the Jeepster.

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The February 1957 issue of Science and Mechanics introduced readers to the FC-150 with this short article.

This Forbes November 15, 1944, article titled “Will the Jeep Invade Peacetime Markets” is a pretty sober look at the reality of the WWII jeep. That’s probably because the author, Francis “Frank” Fenn, was the former President of American Bantam at the time the Bantam BRC was developed (one person argued that Frank was the actual father of the jeep).

With tweaks to the basic WWII jeep, Fenn predicted the CJ could do quite a bit, but would never make a good around-town or travel car due to it’s rough ride and basic functions. He predicted, rightly, that it would take a quite a bit of engineering for the vehicle to meet the average family’s on-road needs.

The Sumer 2020 Dispatcher Magazine arrived in my mailbox this weekend. Jim Allen’s feature article on the Jeepster Commando designs was particularly interesting. I knew there were a variety, but I didn’t know there were this many!