boxster and gravel roads

[Lobo1186]

Jeep wranglers are one of the few SUV models that retain value quite well.

[litteng]

where are you moving to???

[The Radium King]

Fort Smith, NT from Ucluelet, BC.

[litteng]

i'd be tempted to suck on the barrel before heading north again (to fort smith)... how long are you planning on staying ?

fort smith is probably not a great choice if driving the boxster is important to ya, but you already know that.

i spent enough time in northern SASK, that i know the beauty of the north and the sacrifices needed in life style to survive. my family stayed in saskatoon. i commuted to site by air (points north landing)

we beat the everlovin snot out of every truck they handed to us at Mxxxxxn lake, 3 years was a good life for a vehicle in the north.

sell the boxster or store it, no sense in even thinking about anything nice or fancy north of 60. i've got a bmw f650 dakar for roads like that

post pictures when you get there, safe travel

[The Radium King]

too cool - you a uranium miner? i did my stint at diavik mining diamonds. i was in yellowknife for 10 years, followed by 10 years in fort smith. tried to get out and live the good life on the coast (bought a porsche for the twisty mountain roads and the whole bit) but i'm going back. once the north gets in your blood ...

ran a saab 900 turbo up north for a while - the roads blew a shock right through the mount once. had my muffler knocked off early one trip (where trips are 1000kms); by the time i got to a mechanic the lack of back pressure caused the engine to blow a dime-sized piece of valve right through the turbo.

got 250k kms and 10 years on my nissan frontier and it's still going strong. clean air, clean oil, clean fuel and you can't go wrong.

[litteng]

actually mech eng, but spent my career r in projects, site eng and const mgr to build Mxxxxxn for Cogema/Areva, and spend time U/G in cigar lake too. enjoy the U/G more then the open pit, also split another 25 yr between engineering and operation & construction in potash, zinc, gold, tarsand

the roads are not impassable ,but speed (higher) and impact with oversized rocks etc will do exactly as you described.

i worked with manager who's motto was "build it as tough as a brick ****************house"

in the north the vehicles need to be that tough. when i was younger, one summer job was with Ford leasing, and we found that the inline 6 cyl trucks stood up way better than the v8, (give me a 300ci ford 6 inline over any v8)

that was then don't know if it would still apply today...

So looking at the map, theres no road direct to Ft smith via ft Mcmurray, so you must be going up through hay river?

[The Radium King]

too funny. i was senior services engineer at diavik, bringing the open pit underground. one of our engineers was a guy called curtis dunford who we stole from cigar lake; i don't envy you that job.

yeah, exit from smith is north to hay river for 300 kms then south again. the only part that is still gravel is the hay river/fort smith section, but that is slowly getting chip-sealed. in the winter they punch a winter road straight south through fort chip to fort mac, and i always thought that is would make a great winter rally route.

fort mac has become a hellhole; when you drive the winter road south, you can tell that you're getting close by the green haze hanging on the horizon.