Extreme cold camping - Driving to Tuktoyaktuk in March

[ruralpunk]

I have been wanting to do this trip for as long as the road to Tuk has existed, and before that I always wanted to drive the Dempster Hwy to Inuvik. And I've always wanted to do it in the winter. Temps will be around 0 to -10°C during the day and -15 to -35°C at night. We are leaving from southern BC, where we live. It will be an 8,000km round trip and will take us a month. Going on the trip will be me and my girlfriend. The plan includes stops in Tuk, Inuvik, Aklvik, Dawson City, and a few random stops along the way (like the Laird Creek Hot-Springs). I am aware of the risk involved, and that is like half the reason I'm doing it, but I'd still like to minimize the risk.

For brevity I am leaving quite a bit out, but I'm looking for advice from anyone who's done this trip in the winter, and to find any holes in my plan.

Winter road experience:

• I lived in Northern Manitoba for 4 years, and in the Kootenays for 6. I'm very comfortable driving on snowpack, and know how to stay safe when encountering ice or snow drifts. Driving on remote winter highways is the least of my concerns for this trip. I do have some concerns about the Dempster and ice roads.

Rig:

• 2021 Gladiator Rubicon
  • 35" tires
  • Terraflex 3.5" lift with Falcon 3.1 Shocks
  • SmartCap EVO
  • Goose Gear rear seat delete
• pulling a 2022 Off Grid Trailers Expedition 2.0
  • 2" Styrofoam insulated walls
  • 21" of ground clearance

Relevant Vehicle Gear:

• Planar portable diesel heater
• 4kWh of batteries with a 4000w inverter on the truck, another 3kWh on the trailer
• V-bar chains
• 40L of extra fuel
• appropriate tools (and the skills to use them)
• Advanced first aid kit (and the skills to use it)
• Winch and recovery gear
• 1 spare tire for the truck, 1 for the trailer, tire patch kit and the knowledge to use it.

Relevant Camping gear:

• Appropriate cold weather gear including Parkas, snow pants, -100 winter boots, wool socks, and several thermal layers, not cheaping out on anything here, if anything it'll be overkill.
• for heat we have the diesel heater
  • back-up is a 1000w electrical conductive heater
  • 2nd back-up is the trailer's propane heater
  • 3rd back-up is sleeping in the idling truck
  • 4th back-up is our -40 down sleeping bags
  • I think that is a reasonable amount of backups.
• as for cooking I imagine we will not be heating a lot of food, and instead will be relying on prepared, ready to eat food. I will bring a small induction cook top, to give us options to occasionally cook/boil water in the truck/camper. We will also be taking occasional hotel breaks to shower and whatnot, and stopping at restaurants for warm meals. If the weather is reasonable we could cook on the trailers propane outside, but I'm not counting on it.

Safety:

• I am both a former mechanic and former Paramedic. So I have the skills and the tools to patch up vehicles and people.
• I now work in disaster management so I'd say that I'm pretty alright at planning for worst case scenarios.
• I'm bringing my InReach, and I have a contact at home that I'll be checking in with regularly and they will have detailed information about my route and know what to do if I don't check in.
• I will also have my ham radio with a deployable HF antenna (for long range transmission).

Fun:

• I have friends we will visit along the way, and there are a few planned stops like at the hot springs.
• Planning on hiring a cultural tour guide for Tuk and Aklvik, looking into dogsleds in Inuvik and Ski-doo tour in Tuk.

Things I'm thinking about/not fully planned out yet:

• I currently have 35" Nitto Terra Grapplers on the Gladiator, they are pretty good with wet and snow, but being that this trip will likely chew through a full set of tires anyways I'm leaning towards getting the more winter oriented EXO grapplers. If i did I would get them for the truck and the trailer and that would give me the opportunity to have a second spare for both the truck/trailer. I know carrying 4 spares may sound overkill however the Dempster Hwy is famous for chewing up tires and tire shops are very small and might not even have a 35" tire in stock.

Well that's all for now. Actually writing this all out makes me realize that I've got this pretty well thought out, but do let me know if you have experience in this and are seeing something I'm not.

 

[shortbus4x4]

Usually roads are smoother in the winter. Are you shutting the rig off when you stop and camp at the end of the day? Or keeping it running all the time?

 

[ruralpunk]

Usually roads are smoother in the winter. Are you shutting the rig off when you stop and camp at the end of the day? Or keeping it running all the time?

Smooth roads is what I'm hoping for.
I am planning on shutting down the truck overnight. It is still new and healthy and its the 3.6 gas engine, so I don't anticipate issues. I dont think it has a block heater, but if it did I could plug it into the inverter for an hour before starting. Also I could reposition one of the diesel heater hoses under the engine to warm it up. Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

 

[shortbus4x4]

Smooth roads is what I'm hoping for.
I am planning on shutting down the truck overnight. It is still new and healthy and its the 3.6 gas engine, so I don't anticipate issues. I dont think it has a block heater, but if it did I could plug it into the inverter for an hour before starting. Also I could reposition one of the diesel heater hoses under the engine to warm it up. Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

Take a canvas tarp or two also to use around the engine to keep the wind out at night and help keep the heat in the engine compartment in the morning when you are heating it up. Do you have a winter grill cover for your Jeep. A heat gun on high shoved down the throttle body will help the engine start too in very cold weather, just be careful about melting it. I'm sure you're running thinner oil too for this trip, it will help with cranking the engine over in the morning. Take jumper cables or a good jumper box too in case you have a weak battery. Do you have a good battery? Usually OE batteries aren't the strongest. I worked oilfields in ND and WY for three winters and learned some tricks on operating in cold weather, mainly we didn't shut the rigs down when it got -20° F.

 

[ruralpunk]

Take a canvas tarp or two also to use around the engine to keep the wind out at night and help keep the heat in the engine compartment in the morning when you are heating it up. Do you have a winter grill cover for your Jeep. A heat gun on high shoved down the throttle body will help the engine start too in very cold weather, just be careful about melting it. I'm sure you're running thinner oil too for this trip, it will help with cranking the engine over in the morning. Take jumper cables or a good jumper box too in case you have a weak battery. Do you have a good battery? Usually OE batteries aren't the strongest. I worked oilfields in ND and WY for three winters and learned some tricks on operating in cold weather, mainly we didn't shut the rigs down when it got -20° F.

Thanks so much for all of this. to answer your questions

• The 3.6l takes full synthetic 0W-20, so I'm not sure I can go thinner than that, haha
• The battery is still OEM but it's also only a year old and never been drained flat.
• I do have a lithium battery jump starter.
• I'll look into a winter grill (back in Manitoba we just used cardboard and zip ties).
• I'm familiar with leaving the engine running overnight, but I don't think that will be necessary on this small gas engine.
• Good call on the tarp, I will have one with me.

 

[shortbus4x4]

I can remember a huge difference in starting my Tundra in the morning depending on if I had parked it facing into the wind or away from the wind. I've always used card board and zip ties too. Yeah you can't go any lighter on the oil. Sounds like a fun trip.

 

[Luinil Explorations]

Your lithium batteries may not be happy at -15C (5F). Are they in the truck cab or bed?
Does the diesel heater provide heat to both the trailer and truck? You may want to insulate the heating ducts.
You may have problems with your propane system at those temperature. Propane tanks start to ice up as the liquid level drops.

 

[ruralpunk]

Your lithium batteries may not be happy at -15C (5F). Are they in the truck cab or bed?
Does the diesel heater provide heat to both the trailer and truck? You may want to insulate the heating ducts.
You may have problems with your propane system at those temperature. Propane tanks start to ice up as the liquid level drops.

Thanks for you help, I think I have most of this sorted.

• My battery bank is in the covered bed, and it has a built in battery warmer to assist with charging down to -20°C I'll also have the pass through to the cab open (and the gap between the windows sealed), it will still be cold, but should warm up a little bit compared to outside. I'm also thinking about temparory installing some bubble wrap foil insulation in the canopy (and maybe on the hardtop of the Gladator as awell, if I can mate it not look tacky as hell).
• The diesel heater will primarily provide heat to the trailer, but because it will be outside I'd like to sort out a way to tee it off into the bed and cab as well, I have a couple ideas of how I might accomplish this, but yes, insulating the ducting is a great point and might be the way to go for that long 10-15 foot span.
• I'm basically planning on the propane not working at all, if gets warm (like -5°C, lol) We might try cooking outside on the propane, but even then the wind would likely steal all the heat, thus the induction top seems to be the way to go (and more realistically simply not cooking a lot at camp)

Insulating the ducting is something I hadn't thought about, so I really appreciate that. Thank you.

 

[reaver]

A couple of things you can try for your batteries, water, and propane.

Buy some rv tank heaters. Specifically, the reflective sticky pads that go on the outside of the tanks.

A 7 inch X 21 inch pad Wraps beautifully around a 5lb propane tank. This will allow you to keep your propane at a reasonable operating temp.

You can also wrap one around your battery. My 100ah lifepo4 has low temp cutoff, but now heating element in it. So I wrapped it in one of these pads, and wired it to a switch on my battery box.

Put one on your water supply as well. It's not going to make it warm, but it will keep it from freezing.

The batteries are the most important on this list. You need to keep them in the charging temperature range. You'll use more battery power when it's cold, and if you can't recharge the batteries, you're going to run into some major problems.

 

[Redruby]

I admire your guts but I’ll do it in the summer when it’s still too cold for me. Have a great and safe trip

 

[Luinil Explorations]

Some other possibilities is to get a second diesel heater for the truck bed and then mount one heater in the trailer and one in the truck bed. You could then tee off the one in the bed into the cab through the pass through. This would keep all the ducts in the heated spaces. You would just need to route the exhaust pipe outside.

 

[orange01z28]

Following this

Extreme cold fascinates me

 

[Alanymarce]

Following this

Extreme cold fascinates me

I'm not sure what "extreme cold" means however I was stuck for three days in Inuvik once - minus 110 deg C (with wind chill)!

 

[orange01z28]

I'm not sure what "extreme cold" means however I was stuck for three days in Inuvik once - minus 110 deg C (with wind chill)!

That's extreme cold

But for me as an Arizona dweller anything under 0°C is extreme cold for me

 

[ruralpunk]

I'm not sure what "extreme cold" means however I was stuck for three days in Inuvik once - minus 110 deg C (with wind chill)!

Yea, I'd say that counts. In my head there is winter camping, where it could get anywhere from 0 to -20°C , and what I meant by "extreme cold" was anthing below that. I'm planning on being able to stay toasty down to -40 (without windchill, as windchill matters less (not none, but less) when you have shelter).

 

[Alanymarce]

Yea, I'd say that counts. In my head there is winter camping, where it could get anywhere from 0 to -20°C , and what I meant by "extreme cold" was anthing below that. I'm planning on being able to stay toasty down to -40 (without windchill, as windchill matters less (not none, but less) when you have shelter).

Yes - wind chill is irrelevant if you're out of the wind. However, if you have to go out for some reason it's significant.