Road to Tuktoyaktuk!

oh geez haha

 

Dude thats awesome! Not only did you do this trip in a Miata, but then you joined a Tacoma forum to share the story and pics!

 

Hey @Shveet how are the bugs up there this time of year, in the preliminary stages of planning for next year and probably going to be up there beginning of August time.

 

they don't seem too hecktick (ha)
in the summers they were bad, fairly viscous. ATM average day temp is around 18c or so and there aren't as many bugs as i recall. However idk what it's like going north to NWT. could be better than what hit me (swarms of 50+ and they didn't care about no coils...

overall it's pretty good at this time around, but the nights are cooler (can reach 0c depending where you camp).

 

Every yr there are variances with the bug levels. When I went up in 2014 I found it to be very tolerable, like not even close to the hellish experiences I’ve had in Northern Ontario!!

 

So what you’re saying is I should attempt this in my 900 dollar Volvo…?

 

DO IT!!!

 

You’ve got me tempted.

TEC non Toyota sub 1k tuktoyaktuk trip?

 

do it, no balls!

 

ok , rebuilt the PC. had issues with it and finally bit the dust.
so basically had to start from scratch. I do have all the photos still and will be doing uploads once i get things all set up.

 

might be the last of the photo dump, i thought i didn't have photos of Tuk up already

 

thanks for the pics, Is there a story behing the Ford's flat tire?

 

eh Sort of;

he was the 3rd i helped plug a tire in and it's mostly just. he was heading to Inuvik and simply put, rolled over a stone and suddenly flat tire. I apparently showed up 5 minutes after it had happened to him and i noticed another truck there trying to help them. no one had tools except for myself so we spent 20 minutes trying to figure out what to do. issues were F350 was too heavy, the bottoms of the 2 jacks i had are too small (8 ton Mastercrap and the Taco- OEM one), the caps of the 2 jacks i had were too small (Axle would slide right off), rock was in an awkward spot so you couldn't get to it from the wheel well since the mud flaps were attached funny.

ended up needing to lower the arms of the camper to help lift the truck up to be able to get to the axle and to unbolt the bloody thing.
eventually i ended up making a larger hole just to pry out the rock that pierced through.

this was just half the rock that came out;

took 5 strips to plug that hole so the tire could hold air and apparently Ford calls for 80PSI in the tires, i didn't fill past 40PSI since it was starting to take a while...
got him turned around and headed down to Eagle plains to get it checked out.

 

Dude that is good of you to help out that much.. TEC nice representing

 

i'm too nice for my own good

 

That is a sweet troupie shown there

Lost track of this thread as C-19 took over the world and my Tuk plans are now to 2024.

 

I hear what you're saying. Now I don't make plans for any trip. When the time arises for me to go I just pick up and go I had planned for this trip for such a long time years actually and it never materialized because of one thing or another. So now I just don't make plans one year I'll pick up and go to tuk

 

Well we were going to take semi-retirement in 2021 - Covid and my boss begging me to stay on - and of course the extra 2 yrs of full-time cash helps of course - I committed up to early 2023 full time, and part time after. Will pull the trigger on Starlink early in the new year to help with that if they actually pony up to the part time work.

Our first "long trip" is mid Feb 23 down to our house build in my Wife's birth country (Nicaragua) in the Hyundai Galloper - that we will do for 6 weeks - Then Alberta and BC in the Prado summer 2023 - Back down to the Nicaraguan house a good part of winter 2023 in the Galloper and then up to Tuk in the Prado late summer 2024 - Taking 6 weeks for that.

 

I'm in the same boat - July/Aug 2023 was a "I should be able to" 6 months ago. Now it's a "Ehhh we'll see, things have changed".

This is probably my next "big" road trip when I get time though. Last one was a cannonball run, all the others have been short "local" trips.

I'm planning my early retirement around 50 right now. But you hit it with the couple years of extra cash flow being nice.

I figure I'd rather take 50-60 off, and enjoy it when I'm that age, and maybe need to go back for 60-65/67, rather than wait until 65 and have 15 more years on my bones that won't let me sleep in a truck, ride a bike, get on a plane for 18 hours, row a kayak, etc etc etc.

 

We decided in 2011 that 2021 would be our end of full-time work. My wife was done this past Feb - We are both 57. My Dad, who is 80, still has 400,000 sq foot of greenhouses and 12 Jamaicans that come up every year along with a retail greenhouse my sister runs outside Brantford (On) - I chose the cube life.

I still plan to have some type of work into my mid 70's but with breaks to Tuk, Stewart BC, The James bay road, Quartzite, The Baja, Central America, The Labrador highway et all all between now and the time my body says - Hey you - time to slow down. But Tuk is the most important one.

My Biggest fear is the windshield - Prado windscreens (At least prior to 2003 Windshields) are very rare and cost a fortune. Mind you on the 90 series thread on Ih8mud about 4 Yanks have showed up importing 1996 LC 90 series - If enough of them do that it will give me some hope for reasonable windscreen replacements.

For Tuk, getting the wind screen with one of those super coarings would probably the only trip specific mod I would do.