As with many of the best off-road events, the Jeep Jamboree started as just a couple of enthusiasts stumbling upon a pretty view. In this case, more than 70 years ago, Mark Smith was looking for a place to fish, when he found the Rubicon Trail.
According to a new video from Jeep celebrating the legendary off-road mecca, which has become synonymous with its vehicles, after his fishing trip, Smith got home to his wife and said he’d found the most beautiful place on earth. In 1953, he decided to get a couple of his pals at the Rotary Club to join him for a drive on the trail, which is near Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
“When Mark Smith organized the first Jeep Jamboree with 55 Willys and voyaged across the Sierra Nevada Mountains by way of the Rubicon Trail, off-road recreation was born,” said Pearse Umlauf, president and CEO of Jeep Jamboree. “The following year, Willys Motors — then manufacturer of Jeep vehicles — became involved with the adventure, and Jeep Jamborees have been an off-road tradition ever since and continue to grow.”
Read: AEV Is Here To Make Your 2024 Jeep Wrangler Ever Better
The trail is considered by many to be one of the hardest on the planet, and takes drivers about 22 miles (35 km) through off-the-grid terrain that rises from 5,400 feet to more than 7,000 feet in elevation (1,646-2,133 meters).
This summer, more than 450 Jeep enthusiast flocked to the trail to partake in the Jeep Jamboree. They drove more than 125 Wranglers and Gladiators along 17.5 miles (28 km) of the toughest parts of the Rubicon Trail for an off-road adventure like no other (except the 69 that came before it).
“For more than 80 years, the Jeep brand community has defined the Jeep brand and, for 70 of those years, the Rubicon Trail has been heralded by the community as one of the toughest off-road trails in the world,” said Jim Morrison, head of the Jeep brand in North America. “Its beauty has put the Rubicon Trail on every Jeep 4×4 customer’s bucket list.”
The namesake of every Rubicon branded Jeep Wrangler since 2002, the trail is where Jeep tests the off-road vehicles to this day to ensure they’re well and truly as capable as the name suggests.