If you’re thinking about ordering the 2026 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat Jailbreak edition, be prepared to be overwhelmed. 

As the ‘SRT Hellcat’ name suggests, this special-edition Durango will carry on with the iconic HEMI V-8 under the hood. While Dodge and its siblings at Stellantis, Jeep and Ram, pulled and/or were pulling the plug on the Hemi, it lives on as EPA rules are relaxed and new management takes the reins at the car maker.

That, in itself, will likely draw plenty of attention from midsize SUV buyers. But the Jailbreak package has more to offer. A lot more.

Jailbreak = Endless Choices

Have your eye on a particular shade of red, but don’t like the wheels or, perhaps, the interior trim it normally comes with? No problem. That’s what the Jailbreak package is all about.

“We’ve always been a brand about doing things our way,” Dodge CEO Matt McAlear said during a backgrounder briefing on the brand’s newest offering. “So, why shouldn’t customers have the same opportunity?”

To start with, you can order the 2026 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat Jailbreak in a 5-, 6- or even 7-seat layout. And you can opt for a standard or upgraded sound system, a power sunroof, perhaps, or a trailer tow option. Not enough? How about a rainbow of colors.

Add to the list of options:

• Six exterior colors – plus a Gloss Black hood
• Six different wheels
• Four Brembo brake caliper colors
• Six exterior badge choices
• Five dual stripe designs
• Five interior seat colors

If that isn’t enough, you even can choose from five different seatbelt colors.

The HEMI Lives Another Year

Dodge likes to call itself the “Brotherhood of Muscle,” but it alienated a lot of long-time loyalists with some of the moves its made lately. It not only ended production of the classic Charger and Challenger muscle cars — replacing them with the all-electric Charger Daytona — but also ended the run of the HEMI in many of its vehicles.

Dodge wasn’t alone, sibling brand Ram also pulled the iconic V-8 from production. Now, the Stellantis is bringing the HEMI back in a wide variety of vehicles, with more likely to be announced soon. 

The specs haven’t changed on the Hellcat HEMI. The supercharged 6.2L engine will punch out 710 horsepower, 645 pound-feet of torque, and one deafening roar when you put the pedal to the metal.

Based on 2025 numbers, the monster motor should launch the 2026 Durango SRT Hellcat Jailbreak edition from 0-60 in about 3.5 seconds.

We’ll have to wait for final pricing, and that could vary widely depending on what options each buyer chooses.

Look for the SUV to reach U.S. showrooms this coming fall. But, if you want one, you can order one as soon as August 13th at your local Dodge dealer.

Hiking the CDT sobo Lincoln to Helena

Trail Town!

Lincoln was a great trail town! The owner of a bar lets hikers camp behind their building on a perfectly flat, green meadow. After setting up our tents there, we strolled through town in our rain gear on that hot sunny afternoon, to get to the free showers. Not our most glamorous moment for sure. But then we had a drink, a full bag of snack cucumbers and hummus on a bench behind the laundromat. Definitively a glamorous moment from a thru-hikers perspective! 

We made sure to eat a lot of tasty town food in between all our tasks (laundry, charging electronics, resupply, communication with friends and family, blogging, planning the next section) and everywhere we were met friendly.  While hobbling back to our tents, bellies full with good old greasy pizza, I couldn’t help but gush about the blinking lights, the buildings, the wood carving festival…! “Yeah I guess it’s very Americana,” Bugs grinned. 

The hitch back to trail was easy: We danced and smiled by the side of the road with the “hiker to trail” sign that a dear friend of mine had written on my tent’s ground sheet back home. Nearly immediately, we got a parked pick-up driver’s attention. During the drive, we not only learned how he moved to Lincoln for love, but he had also a lot to say about the local mountain lion population. I tried not to listen too much to all his different anecdotes. I’m ok with bears now, but mountain lions just scare me. 

It’s about to get painful

Bugs and I were ready to crush miles as we started hiking along the beautiful ridgelines allowing majestic views deep into Eastern Montana.

But soon, I got slower. My heel had already been bugging me in the last section, now the pain was getting excruciating! After 19 miles of slow hobbling and holding back tears I stumbled on a road. Bugs jumped out of the shadows on the other side of the road, looking worried. 

“Are you ok?”

“No, not at all. I might need to camp here.” 

Slowly, we made our way down to a spring. I was flinching with every step, leaning onto my trecking poles and limping heavily. At the spring, we met a lovely hiker again that we’ve last seen in East Glacier. He and Bugs were talking but I just sat on a stone holding my foot, trying not to start crying. I had taken the shoe off and the numbness from the constant pressure of hiking started to wear off. Now the heel was throbbing with intense pain, hot to the touch, although I was barely able to touch it. The others asked me something, but I was unable to understand nor speak, I just shook my head and bit my lip. They understood. 

Desperate times – Desperate measures

It took me a while to breathe through the pain and ask Bugs Bunny if he could bring me some water to cool my foot. Then I fished the tiny nail scissors out of my pack and grimmly began to cut away the heel of my shoe.

“This is either the most stupid thing I could do out here. Or brilliant.” I thought to my self. After all, my shoes were probably my most crucial piece of gear. But I’ve given up so much to be out here, I was not going to let this pain stop me. 

Turned out, it was the a genius move! So much so, that I cut my secound shoe shortly afterwards. Sure, I had to come up with a special lacing technique to keep everything in place. Sure, everything was a bit wobbly and unstable afterwards, which was hard for my ankles. Sure, a lot of dirt, pine needles and tiny stones would get into my shoes now. But I was able to hike out the next morning and continue since. 

Short cuts and road walks

From then on, Bugs Bunny unleashed his alternate – finding – superpower, constantly looking for short cuts. With my still badly inflamed heel we stumbled along dirt roads, trying to avoid as much elevation gain as possible, since ascends hurt especially bad.

So we made our way to the Llama Ranch – apparently an Alpaca Ranch – and enjoyed our first time trail magic treat on their porch with fresh sandwiches and sodas.

Our unmarked alternates lead us into low and dry valleys, where eventually we ran out of water. It wasn’t after walking past several bones and skeletons of livestock that we finally found a trickle.

Tired from the unexpected complications we finally made it into Helena fir our first, well deserved zero day.

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Leaving Kenndey Meadows, we felt refreshed and excited to start getting into the meat and potatoes of the Sierra. We planned for some low mileage days getting us to Cottonwood Pass area over 4 days of hiking to be picked up for the 4th of July. Every year we spend the 4th in Bridgeport with my partner’s dad, being just a few hours down highway 395, it felt too good to pass up. Plus our sweet pup, Bonnie, was getting dropped off, so we wanted to be there for her of course too. 

Kennedy Meadows to Cottonwood Pass

Every mile was bringing us closer to the true ‘high sierra’, the views becoming more fantastic and the elevation climbing. We rolled into the camping area at Horseshoe Meadows at the bottom of Cottonwood Pass just in time to set our tent up before a thunderstorm rolled in. Cue the meltdown for me. I DO NOT like thunder and lightning. Thunderstorms are one of the few things in the backcountry that absolutely freak me out. Our hometown boy scout troop had a fatal lighting accident 20 years ago in the Crabtree Meadows area new Mt. Whitney, one of the victims being our dear friend’s brother, so this is always in the back of my mind when thunder and lightning show up. You can’t control the lightning! The storm was pretty much directly overhead, but luckily moved through quickly, and thus my tears were short lived. 

The next morning, my partner’s dad arrived to take us to Bridgeport for a 3 day zero. When we arrived back to the trailhead 3 days later, our plan was to make it to Kearsarge pass, and hike Mt. Whitney in 4 days. Then be resupplied in Onion Valley. 

Cottonwood Pass to Kearsarge Pass

The first day back on trail started sluggish for me. Even though we spent the night at almost 10,000 feet, I was still feeling the altitude hiking back up Cottonwood Pass. My period was also making an appearance, and I definitely feel lower energy at this time of the month. Regardless we still managed to make it to Crabtree meadows area for camp, after dark though. The next morning started a little slower for us, and we moved our camp up near the ranger station where our PCT permit allowed us to camp. We set up our base camp and headed out to hike Mt. Whitney. The forecast was clear so we felt confident about our ascent going safely, even with a later start.  

Mt. Whitney 

Let me just say, Mt. Whitney kicked my arse. I thought with a lighter pack it would be no problem, but going up took 2 hours longer than we projected. The plus side, we enjoyed the summit totally to ourselves. We had crystal clear views and bright blue skies. We also learned that we are not ‘mountaineer’ type people. Neither one of us really likes heights very much, and there are a few vertigo inducing moments along the Whitney ascent. Of course going down, though it didn’t take as long as going up, still took quite a long time. We arrived at camp close to 9, and still needed to make dinner. Oops! A successful day though. We made it up and down safely, and did not shit ourselves doing so. That’s a win. 

Bighorn Plateau

After 2 grueling, long days, we let ourselves sleep in late and didn’t leave camp until close to 11 am. We were bagged. Ian had a headache from the elevation of Whitney, so we took it slow. The highlight of this day though was Bighorn Plateau. The sweeping views all around of the high sierra, was simply stunning. We both found ourselves a bit choked up, just in awe. We decided to call it at Tyndall Creek area. This was the last really good camping before Forester pass, and we weren’t keen to sleep ay higher than 10,000 feet elevation. It would mean a longer day tomorrow, but we also had a little back up food just in case. 

Forester Pass

We had an early start to give us the time we needed getting over Forester and hopefully over Kearsarge in the same day. That morning we were the first people heading northbound to reach the base of the pass, we stopped for bagels and cream cheese before our ascent. I had been feeling really nervous about this pass. I had just seen and heard so much about it! The day before on Bighorn we thought we were looking directly at Forester (what seemed to be a reasonable saddle to cross over), but of course we were corrected as we turned right up the valley and looked straight up a wall of granite. Oh! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! I had to laugh because it just seemed like the most ridiculous route to take over a mountain. Laughs aside, the trail building of this pass is, incredible. Being the second week of July, we were blessed with no snow on the south face, the side that typically has a nasty cornice. But wowza you are high up!

On our way down we stopped at chatted with a hiker who went over while we ate our bagels. Once we got to talking we realized we went to the same college and nursing school in Oregon, and she had just finished a travel job where she worked with someone else we know, and had just spend fourth of July with. A lovely small world connection!

Kearsarge Pass

We hiked the rest of the day with our new friend Meghan, who was out for a week long solo trip. The miles flew by, and it came time fore us to part at the Kearsarge junction. We were determined to make it over the pass. The mileage to the Onion Valley campground was deceptive, as every source said something different. We knew it was between 6 and 9 miles basically. I think officially it is 7.5 miles. The miles up to the pass are stunning. Lakes and granite mountains towering over. I wanted to just stay, but knew there were good things waiting over the pass for us. Once we hit the pass and started our descent, we ran into some hikers who confirmed Ian’s dad was down in the parking lot with the dogs and cold beer. We gathered our waning energy and tried to hustle. It was becoming apparent that we wouldn’t get there until well after dark. But we made it, 20 something miles and 2 high passes later. Yee haw. 

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