The author John Blashford-Snell, born in 1936, a former British soldier and founder of the Scientific Exploration Society, first tells of his youth and his career as an engineer, which made him the leader of several expeditions. On one expedition he and his team conquered the Darién Gap with three Land Rovers. After that, adventure follows adventure, so that we hardly want to put the book down, because we want to know what happens next.
As an expedition leader, he repeatedly has to trust his team, must be decisive, but may never be irresponsible. All this at a time when travel was still adventurous, wild and in part very dangerous. He tells, for example, of his breathtaking descent of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, on which he incidentally invented white-water rafting.
For 4×4 enthusiasts, the early chapters of the book already contain repeated mentions of the Land Rovers that accompanied him during his service in Cyprus or in Libya and on expeditions. There, though, they only play a supporting role.
The first endurance test for the new Range Rover: the Darién Gap
What is likely to interest the off-roader in general and the Land Rover fan in particular, however, is the famous British Trans-Americas Expedition, in which he took part. A team of British soldiers and two of the Range Rovers newly launched in 1970 (today the Range Rover Classic), later also a Land Rover Series II, crossed North and South America over several months from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. In doing so they covered 29,000 km.
The most difficult stage of this expedition was the roughly 110 km long section through the Tapón del Darién, also called the Darién Gap, the area that connects Panama and Colombia. To this day the Darién Gap has not been opened up by a road.
Two other expeditions had already tried in the years before to cross this jungle, which consists only of mountains, rivers and swamps. The first, carried out by a former British SAS member and just one Series II, was successful. The second, initiated by General Motors with a Corvair, failed. In his book, Blashford-Snell describes in detail the challenges and the hardships that he and his team had to face during the British Trans-Americas Expedition.
Verdict: “Where the Trails Run Out” is an adventure book of the very highest class.
Language: English
Pages: 256
Order directly: Where the Trails Run Out on Amazon