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Photo by Sam Harrel

FAIRBANKS — Alaskan adventures come in many forms. For some, it’s venturing into the wild, becoming one with nature, conquering a mountain or trying to prove it’s possible to live off wild berries and walk across the Brooks Range.

But for one Argentine adventurer, just making it to the end of the Dalton Highway in his 1972 Chevrolet Nova S.S. will be enough of a feat to conquer.

“Nothing is impossible,” according to Gabriel Storchi, who began his journey in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Dec. 9, and is trying to complete his drive to Deadhorse in the next few days.

His venture began when his father, Juan Carlos Storchi, passed away last December after a long battle with a brain tumor.

“He was suffering for 8 months, and before he died I promised him I would make the travel to the tip,” Storchi said. “It was something he always wanted to do.”

His father had wanted to travel from the southernmost tip of South America, Ushuaia, all the way to Deadhorse.

Storchi left Buenos Aires after kissing his wife, Daniela, and his two children, Fausto and Apustina, goodbye.

“My doctor had just removed a melanoma from my stomach, and I knew I had to pack up the car and go before I never got a chance again,” he said.

Storchi has ridden in green style the entire way with a solar panel attached to the back of the Chevy to charge the two batteries he brought along.

Though the solar panel doesn’t run the entire car, he uses the energy to operate the car’s electrical system and his laptop computer as well.

“I wanted to mix old technology with the new,” he said. “On the other hand, I’m a systems engineer and I wanted to see if it could be done.”

Storchi relied on various donations from solar technology companies, and after he faced problems with the car’s alternator he installed a converter to convert the 12 volt charge of the solar panel to 120 volts to keep the vehicle running.

In addition to the solar panel, the Chevy has two separate fuel tanks — one for natural gas, which is the primary fuel source in South America, and a separate tank for regular gasoline.

“The gasoline has been so expensive so I cannot waste another thing here,” Storchi said.

To compensate for high fuel prices, Storchi often sleeps in the bed he installed in the Chevy rather than staying in hotels.

The outside of a car looks like a well-traveled suitcase or a teenager’s skateboard, covered in stickers representing each country he’s visited and the faces of world-famous soccer players and tango artists.

“They’re always with me wherever I go,” Storchi said.

Along the way up the western coast of the two continents, Storchi has maintained a Web site (text in Spanish) to log his adventure and update friends and family back home.

“After this much driving (18,264 miles) I want to ship the car home and fly back after I make it up north,” he said.

But of all the places he’s visited, Storchi found Alaska to be the most unique and friendly.

“I want to bring my family back to this place because Alaska has the best photographers in the world,” he said. “They take photos of mountains that I can’t even see.”