Pathfinders Transcontinental 2021

National Parks Tour

May 30th - June 20th, 2021

Driving a brass car on a long-distance adventure is a dream for many owners in the hobby. It embodies the spirit of the by gone era when the automobile was still a new invention and testing its abilities through traveling great distances was an accomplishment for both man and machine. Although much of the world has progressed at break neck speed, the desire to travel in these primitive machines has dimmed very little.

 Having been bitten by the bug of long-distance touring, Dan and Samantha Findlay set out to plan a journey through a collection of the National Parks, following in the footsteps of Millard Newman who hosted many Transcontinental Tours in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Thus, the Pathfinders Transcontinental National Parks Tour was born.

Although planning started for this event in early 2019, Covid took its toll on the event and caused a myriad of changes. The final route was decided to start in Scottsdale Arizona, travel through the Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Grand Escalante, Grand Teton, Yellowstone, Glacier and Cascades National Parks before reaching its terminus in Coeur D’Alene Idaho. It was to last 21 days, cover 3,234 miles, and for 14 vehicles and their loyal operators, it would be an adventure of a lifetime.

The cars arrived on May 29th at the Camelback Resort in Scottsdale, where the much-anticipated tour festivities began. The participants and their vehicles came from all over the continent including Georgia, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Illinois, Utah, New York and British Columbia. It was an impressive group of cars including two behemoths, the Sidwell’s 1912 Peerless at 825ci and the Chattin’s 1911 Thomas Flyer at 856ci.  

 We left Scottsdale early in the morning to avoid the 105F heat that would hit later in the day. The roads were mainly quiet secondary highways with little traffic and beautiful scenery. There were lots of hills and twisty roads up and down the canyons. The historic town of Jerome was an interesting stop as it was quite literally built on cliffs with tight switch backs that travelled directly through it.

 Leaving Zion a few days later was a particularly interesting day as we had to drive through the unlit, 1.1 mile long, Mt. Carmel tunnel, built in the 1930’s. Headlights were a necessity as this was a very dark and narrow passageway. From there we drove to our highest elevation of the tour, 10,577 ft, visiting Cedar Breaks National Monument. The tour hosts in their 15 Mercer were pulled over by a local Sheriff after just cresting the mountain so he could take a picture of the magnificent machine he’d been following for the last few miles. The temperature remained around 100F and this caused many of the cars to overheat on the hills. Even the most stalwart Silver Ghosts needed to water up at times.

 Day 9 was the day when we had our first major breakdown of the tour. The 1914 Premier Z2 of Ken and Chris Findlay had been overheating for much of the run. It was discovered the day before in Richfield, Utah that a crack had developed in one of the rear cylinders. This caused the exhaust to enter the water jacket and heat the water. Block sealer was added as a possible temporary fix but the next day proved the problem wasn’t going away. In Park City, after 1124 miles, it was time to park the Premier and continue on in a rental car.

 Park City was also time for the lady’s night out, which featured a Mediterranean style cooking class. They were picked up in a limo and whisked away for an entertaining evening learning some new culinary skills. It was a nice change of pace and enjoyed by all.

One of the highlights of the many places we stayed was The Kodiak Mountain Resort in Afton, WY. This was a great spot as everyone had their own log cabin to relax and enjoy. Only a year old, it was an impressive accommodation to find in such a small town and comes highly recommended.

 Upon leaving the Kodiak on the road to Yellowstone, the tour claimed its next causality. This time it was the 1911 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost of Tim and Pia Sierra. Starting up from a traffic stop the output shaft in the transmission sheared off rendering the car inoperable. Haggerty’s was a sponsor of the tour and provided the needed towing service to get the Silver Ghost moved into safe storage for the duration of the tour.

 Our drive then took us through Grand Teton National Park and on to Yellowstone. We were supposed to stay for 2 days at the Old Faithful Inn but at the last minute all the reservations were cancelled due to Covid. Some quick scrambling by Samantha and Dan found accommodations for all, 30 miles away at West Yellowstone. We had a much-deserved day off here to give our group plenty of time to see the sites and enjoy the local cuisine.

We should mention that some of the cars had been having a few issues along the way. Peter and Rita Lehtola’s 11 Locomobile had broken a few rear hub bolts. This was fixed in the hotel parking lot. Andy and Madeleine Oldman’s 14 Lozier had been overheating and required a few stops every day for water. They unfortunately got the radiator so hot that the Lozier emblem actually fell off of the top tank and was lost on the road. The 1917 Pierce of Bob and Jackie Lederer had a few different issues going on. The starter gave trouble day one, a fuel delivery problem occurred a few times causing vapour lock in the extreme heat, the magneto was being very difficult necessitating a push start in the mornings and there were a couple of flat tires to deal with as well. Not to be out done was Angie and Jeff Chattin’s 1911 Thomas where broken spokes on the recently re-spoked wire wheels continually caused challenges. Fortunately, the spare was sacrificing its good spokes for the rest of the wheels as required. Marion Haines’s 1912 Lohr had fan problems which Marion overcame. He was also seen with his driving partner, Merrill Maxfield, in the parking lot working on the bent tie rod one evening.

Still on the road and giving very little trouble was the newly restored 1912 Peerless 6/60 of Kay and Cam Sidwell’s, John Dolan’s 08 Silver Ghost, Steve and Kim Haine’s 14 Silver Ghost, Dave and Candy Staadt’s 14 Simplex D 50hp, Dave and Kimberly Shadduck’s 25 Silver Ghost, Dan and Samantha’s 15 Mercer, Mike and Cynthia Sierra’s 13 Silver Ghost with guests Monica and Sierra.

The next few days took us to White Sulphur Springs, MT and then on to Glacier National Park. This was our longest drive of the tour at 256 miles. In addition, there were strong winds coming off the mountains making driving more difficult. It was generally agreed that an extremely high wind may be worse than rain when driving an antique vehicle. Our welcomed stay that night was at the Great Bear Lodge in St Mary’s Village overlooking the gorgeous mountain range. At this point we had traveled a challenging and awe-inspiring 1,979 miles on the tour.

 A few days later we had the opportunity to visit the Stonehenge Aviation Museum which opened up just for our group. The museum is on 1500 acres and consists of a private collection of air worthy Warbirds from all years. In addition, there is a full-size re-creation of Stonehenge on the property. After, we continued on to our destination, Sand Point, ID where we had the opportunity to dine directly on the waterfront overlooking the gorgeous Lake Pend Oreille. The restaurant next to our lodge opened up just for us. We had a wonderful meal on the deck enjoying the great view and great weather. This was the end of the tour for Cam and Kay Sidwell and the 12 Peerless as well as John Dolan and his 08 Rolls-Royce as work required their attention. Dave Shadduck also had to leave for business but his wife Kimberly remained and drove their Rolls-Royce solo for the remainder of the adventure. All were missed for the rest of the tour.

Ladies driving day was a 145-mile trek from Sandpoint to Colville, WA. A few of the women tried their hand at piloting these road machines through the Colville National Forest and rode the “on-demand” ferry across the Columbia River. It was great to see them show the boys how it’s done!

Day 18 we made our way to Winthrop WA, an interesting town that originally was a stage coach stop in the 1800’s. Now it’s a restored historic western town with plenty of tourists. The 1914 Lozier of Andy and Madeleine developed a bad rod bearing knock. Andy decided it was time to retire the car and Haggerty’s kindly towed the Lozier in to the hotel. Our stay was at another first-class place six miles off the highway, The Sun Mountain Lodge. We had a rest day here so we were able to lounge around the pool and enjoy the heat.

The next morning, we journeyed along a quiet, windy road following the river and made our way to the Diablo Dam, crossed over the top and enjoyed the magnificent view. When we reached Monroe, WA a few of the local Skagit HCCA members were there to have a look at the cars.

Next, we were on to the very hot town of Pateros, WA. It was a bit of an early start as we had to be 90 miles down the road by 9:45 to make our visit at the Leavenworth Reindeer Farm. This was a unique and enjoyable experience for our travelers. It’s not everyday you get to feed a Reindeer.

Sunday June 20th, day 22, was our last day! It was a 198-mile drive to the final destination, Coeur d’Alene, ID. We stopped to view and take photos at the magnificent Grand Coulee Dam. A make work project in the 1930’s depression it is now one of the biggest power generation dams in the USA. Their visitor center is excellent.

That evening our final banquet dinner was held and we were treated to an amazing dinner. A continuous slide show of the trip was running in the back ground. A few awards were given out and a tour completion badge was presented to the drivers. The tour hosts, Dan and Samantha, were presented with a thank you gift from the tour participants. Hugs were plentiful and good byes were said.

It’s worth mentioning that all the cars were loaded on to transporters for their journey back home with the exception of the 12 Lohr driven by Marion Haines and navigator Merrill Maxfield. Not only did they drive the 1,000 miles to the start of the tour, they drove another 700 miles to get back to Utah. That’s a total of over 4,900 miles in just 3-weeks on the road!

Having travelled through six states via secondary highways for the better part of three weeks we feel it is important to inform the readership that 99.9% of the public was extremely happy to see our group rolling down the road. It would have been impossible to count the number of thumbs up and waves we received. Although a lot has changed in the world since the golden age of touring, the love for these fantastic machines is still very much alive and well.

On that last day it was hard to believe that we enjoyed three full weeks of great roads, warm and dry weather (2 minutes of rain fell only on the Thomas and Simplex!), breathtaking scenery, too much food… and then it was all over. We made new friends we won’t soon forget and talked about doing the next Pathfinders Transcontinental in 2023. But for now, it’s time for a rest!

Special thanks to Hargerty’s and Meguiars for their tour support.

“The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.”

W.M. Lewis