Eugene friends recreate life-changing Alaska trip 57 years later

Three Eugene friends will head back to Alaska on Sunday with a red van, a 57-year-old memory and a friendship that began in seventh grade. Greg Theim, Gary Gleaves and Ty Pierce are recreating the trip they made as 17-year-olds in 1969, when they left Oregon after high school graduation and drove north with little more than determination.

The original journey became a defining summer for all three men. KVAL reported that they had no smartphones, no GPS and no guarantee of work when they arrived, but they kept asking for jobs until an employer finally hired all three. Theim later summed up what that first trip meant to him: “Everything I ever imagined would happen on this trip did and more.”

The return is built to echo the first run as closely as possible. Theim found a red van and restored the look of the original vehicle, including painted doors and other details from 1969. He also plans to bring the same sleeping bag he used on the original trip, and a tassel from that era still hangs from the rearview mirror. When Theim asked the other two if they would do it again, both agreed immediately. Pierce’s response was simple: “I’m in.”

The timing gives the trip an unusual symmetry. The three are scheduled to leave Eugene on Sunday, June 14, and reach Anchorage on June 21, the same date they arrived there in 1969. That day was Gleaves’ 18th birthday then, and he will turn 75 this year. June 21 is also the summer solstice, when Anchorage gets especially long daylight, adding another layer of meaning to the return.

What started as a teenage gamble has lasted through careers, marriages and raising families. Now, instead of proving they could find work in Alaska, Theim, Gleaves and Pierce are revisiting the question that has hovered over their story for decades: whether people keep moving toward the lives they once imagined, or only talk about them. Their trip suggests that some of the most durable ties in Eugene are not built in boardrooms or institutions, but on the road, where a shared leap at 17 can still matter at 75.