The Overland Directory
Driver training, recovery courses, field repair and wilderness first aid, taught by people who do it for a living.
We’re working on adding the latest training courses in Washington here.
Teach driving, recovery, field repair or wilderness first aid? Tell us about your courses.
Narrow gravel with blind corners and few pullouts, which means backing up to let someone pass. Soft sand on the beach and at Juniper Dunes, with a tide clock running. Chain fitting in the wet on a highway shoulder. Wet clay on a forest spur that was firm in the morning.
A good course here covers reading a Motor Vehicle Use Map and a Green Dot map as well as driving, because knowing where you may legally be is half the skill in this state.
Training is the cheapest upgrade there is. It costs less than a bumper, weighs nothing, and works on every vehicle you will ever own.
Common courses
Small classes and real terrain.
A trained driver breaks less, gets stuck less and recovers more safely. Most vehicle damage on the trail comes from speed and poor line choice, and most recovery injuries come from rigging that someone guessed at.
Most experienced drivers say the recovery day alone was worth it. Rigging a winch pull safely is not something to work out for the first time when you are stuck.
No. Most introductory courses are designed for stock four-wheel-drive vehicles, and learning what a stock vehicle can do is the point.
From Long Beach at 20 feet to Mount Rainier at 14,411. Altitude decides what your engine, your brakes and your lungs have to work with, and how late in the year the passes open.
Pass, road and summit elevations are the figures published by the agency that manages them. Town elevations are the town’s or county’s own figure where it publishes an exact one; the rest are from the U.S. Geological Survey (3D Elevation Program at the place’s official coordinates), retrieved September 18, 2026. Every source is listed at the foot of the page.
Reviewed September 19, 2026. Conditions, closures and rules change; check with the managing agency before you travel.