Exposure to the elements is what worries me the most. I have seen the cheaper crap just corrode to uselessness in a few years. Even if you never use it the electronics or the motor can crap out on 'em. Having worked in consumer tech myself I can confidently say a lot of products out there are crap because they compete on the basis of being able to claim similar features of another product for cheaper, which is done with cheaper materials, cheaper labor, cheaper design and cheaper parts. There are places selling Chinese knockoff vehicle hoist kits that claim to be able to lift 5 tons but actually buckle under less than 4. People buy them because they are about half the price of a high quality hoist. Anyone who has purchased power tools from Harbor Freight knows what I'm talking about. I'm not saying don't buy cheap products, I'm just saying don't buy them thinking you're going to get the same quality or performance you would from the higher priced specialty brands. Warn actually does rigorous product R&D and Q.C. testing and continually refines it's designs, the Hengseng consumer product megafactory in Guangdong China most likely doesn't.
If all else fails, I might be available for some moderate wheeling between Mill Bay and Ladysmith somewhere on Sunday but I'm starting to get sick of Sicker though. ;-)
Last time I went was on Tuesday with my buddy from Sooke and I decided to try going in off the jeep trail on Sicker Rd instead. I followed a random white Wrangler up it about 5min behind and he was turning back from the top of the trail when I got to it. It looks pretty ugly looking down on it but if you take a decent line down it's not really that bad and you can always get back up on the tailings pile side. (I changed my profile pick to it) Looking back, I can't understand why someone would blaze the trail on THAT line when there is clearly a better line right next to it with no root shelves to hang you up.. The Jeep that turned back had at least 35" offroad tires and at least a 4" lift and he decided not to go for it. I went for the drop since the forest trail actually seemed more sketchy to me. Of course, on total fluke, I managed to get my front end locked up on that stupid shelf for a few panicked moments when the wheel got away from me and pinned itself all the way to the right. The CV's wouldn't budge either but I was able to slide it locked up down the rock until it let go on it's own. There was a hot minute there when I was loathing the very real thought of spending the rest of my day trying to get out of that mess. Nothing got damaged but I learned a valuable lesson about what NOT to do with my front end. Needless to say, I'd like to give that place a break for awhile and try something else.
I was thinking of trying my luck on this loop trail I remember from years ago up Forebay in Jordon River. They're developing up there now so I'm not sure if or how much longer it may be accessible...
I'd love to contribute some trails
Unfortunately, I won't be able to do that until I find a way to convert my track logs from their Garmin .GPX format in to a .KML
I have Tried using DirectX and OpenGL to run Google Earth on this machine and for some reason is just won't run on this POS.
I'm running on a pretty bare bones backup machine and have been for over a year since my main machine bit the silicon dust.
I lost an awful lot of data on my HD too when the file table became irreparably corrupted while my machine was throwing it's fits.
All my GPS logs that were not already backed up on another device are gone too. Everything from late 2004-2011 is completely gone. I had thousands of kilometers of tracks and thousands of saved waypoints that I'm pretty choked about losing. Also there was a lot of irreplaceable software and loads of MP3's. PC crashes just suck.
I have never used one but when it comes to having to rely on a piece of recovery equipment when you are in the middle of nowhere, I'll pay a bit more for Warn reliability.
Exposure to the elements is what worries me the most. I have seen the cheaper crap just corrode to uselessness in a few years. Even if you never use it the electronics or the motor can crap out on 'em. Having worked in consumer tech myself I can confidently say a lot of products out there are crap because they compete on the basis of being able to claim similar features of another product for cheaper, which is done with cheaper materials, cheaper labor, cheaper design and cheaper parts. There are places selling Chinese knockoff vehicle hoist kits that claim to be able to lift 5 tons but actually buckle under less than 4. People buy them because they are about half the price of a high quality hoist. Anyone who has purchased power tools from Harbor Freight knows what I'm talking about. I'm not saying don't buy cheap products, I'm just saying don't buy them thinking you're going to get the same quality or performance you would from the higher priced specialty brands. Warn actually does rigorous product R&D and Q.C. testing and continually refines it's designs, the Hengseng consumer product megafactory in Guangdong China most likely doesn't.
If all else fails, I might be available for some moderate wheeling between Mill Bay and Ladysmith somewhere on Sunday but I'm starting to get sick of Sicker though. ;-)
Last time I went was on Tuesday with my buddy from Sooke and I decided to try going in off the jeep trail on Sicker Rd instead. I followed a random white Wrangler up it about 5min behind and he was turning back from the top of the trail when I got to it. It looks pretty ugly looking down on it but if you take a decent line down it's not really that bad and you can always get back up on the tailings pile side. (I changed my profile pick to it) Looking back, I can't understand why someone would blaze the trail on THAT line when there is clearly a better line right next to it with no root shelves to hang you up.. The Jeep that turned back had at least 35" offroad tires and at least a 4" lift and he decided not to go for it. I went for the drop since the forest trail actually seemed more sketchy to me. Of course, on total fluke, I managed to get my front end locked up on that stupid shelf for a few panicked moments when the wheel got away from me and pinned itself all the way to the right. The CV's wouldn't budge either but I was able to slide it locked up down the rock until it let go on it's own. There was a hot minute there when I was loathing the very real thought of spending the rest of my day trying to get out of that mess. Nothing got damaged but I learned a valuable lesson about what NOT to do with my front end. Needless to say, I'd like to give that place a break for awhile and try something else.
I was thinking of trying my luck on this loop trail I remember from years ago up Forebay in Jordon River. They're developing up there now so I'm not sure if or how much longer it may be accessible...
I'd love to contribute some trails
Unfortunately, I won't be able to do that until I find a way to convert my track logs from their Garmin .GPX format in to a .KML
I have Tried using DirectX and OpenGL to run Google Earth on this machine and for some reason is just won't run on this POS.
I'm running on a pretty bare bones backup machine and have been for over a year since my main machine bit the silicon dust.
I lost an awful lot of data on my HD too when the file table became irreparably corrupted while my machine was throwing it's fits.
All my GPS logs that were not already backed up on another device are gone too. Everything from late 2004-2011 is completely gone. I had thousands of kilometers of tracks and thousands of saved waypoints that I'm pretty choked about losing. Also there was a lot of irreplaceable software and loads of MP3's. PC crashes just suck.
I have never used one but when it comes to having to rely on a piece of recovery equipment when you are in the middle of nowhere, I'll pay a bit more for Warn reliability.
I turned back once I hit about 750m elev as I was just curious passing by on the way to Cow.Lake and not really planning to wheel it.