Eight Wheel Drive

In January 2017, Maciej Kamiński and Michał Woroch steered their 1996 Land Rover Defender off the track at 15,000 feet in the Peruvian Andes, 78 days after leaving Buenos Aires for Tierra del Fuego and then points north. It was twilight, the sky threatening snow. Searching for a place to camp, Kamiński drove through a stream, across 200 yards of stony ground, and into a beautiful grassy meadow, where the 6,000-pound vehicle promptly sank to its axles. Kamiński shifted into four-wheel low and tried to rock the truck out of the trap. Nothing doing.

They couldn’t push, winch, or jack the rig out of the mire. Nor could they go for help, as both men are confined to wheelchairs, which were useless in the deep mud. Kamiński, 33, helped Woroch into his sleeping quarters in the rear of the vehicle, and then used an electric lift to reach his customary night’s perch on the truck’s roof. The operation took the better part of an hour.