Camping w/ the Tercel 4wd this weekend:

[GTSSportCoupe]

Went out to Nitnat River and Nitnat Lake on Vancouver Island (BC, Canada) this weekend. Had some very exciting 4wding adventures. Thought I might not be able to get myself out of some of the areas I went, but the Tercel pulled through for me. Here are a few pics I thought I'd share. Hope you enjoy:

First campsite (went 4wding up a very overgrown logging road up to a landing at the top of the road - was private and very quiet).

Here is the road down from that campsite.

Hit 400,000kms on this trip!

On the road to a second campsite.

At the second campsite. Very nice private spot on the river. Mainly because most people were to scared to drive down into this area. And rightly so, it took me a couple runs to get back out of it.



My wife and I don't bother with a tent, we just slept in the back of the tercel. I threw a tarp over the car and canoe to keep the early morning sun from baking us and waking us up early. I call it the tercel tent. It worked like a hot damn.


Left the second campsite and drove towards Nitnat lake, this is a veiw of an unknown river from a logging road bridge.

Some more main logging road as we head towards the lake.

Lots of pictures of Nitnat lake. This lake is actually salt water as it is attached to the ocean. I didn't get any shots of the road down into this place, but it was BRUTAL. I knew I could pull back out of this place traction wise, but thought I'd probably slash my tires in the process. My wife and I didn't really get any pics of the road out, as we were so focused on getting out with the tercel in one piece.






Saw lots of neat ocean creatures, including many huge jelly fish. This is a small dinner plate sized one. Some had long tendrils that were probably in excess of 6 feet long.

Stopped for lunch at a nice little beach, and shot some flower pics.


The beach we stopped at.

A star fish in the water. There were many many types of different star fish, most too deep to get a decent pic of.

View point above the lake off of a main logging road.


It was a great trip!! If any of you ever come visit Vancouver Island, I can recommend some pretty great places to go in your Tercel 4wd.

[ARCHINSTL]

Wow ! Impressive scenery!
Thanks for the shots.
Several of the photos would certainly be "suitable for framing" - or serve as a model for an oil/watercolor painting.
Tom M.

[mike30]

surely which it enjoys the photos, a photo is worth but that thousand words and invite to leave and to enjoy the nature.

[Tercel Marseille]

It's superb !
Thanks a lot for those beautifull picts !
I like your boat on the tercel too.
Really nice

[icE]

that's friggin sweet!

That terc is in awesome condition with those rims

[simon84]

Nice trip.
I like the tercel tent idea, works great with the canoe.
I have done a few nights in the tercel and I'm 6'1, no problems.
I call it Chateau Tercel.

[GTSSportCoupe]

Thanks for all the positive feedback guys! Thats the nice thing about this forum: People here appreciate the engineering and abilities of the Tercel 4wd, AND enjoy/respect the beauty of nature.

IcE: That terc is in awesome condition with those rims

I wouldn't say my tercel is in 'awesome condition'. It has it's fair share of rust holes. Those rims are not really my style. They came with my recently purchased MR2, and I really couldn't stand them on it, so put them on the Tercel instead. They seemed to get me around ok this weekend though, and maybe they do give the Tercel a nicer stance... Thanks for the nice comments though. I think it's the scenery that makes my Tercel look good more than anything!

[GTSSportCoupe]

Nice trip.
I like the tercel tent idea, works great with the canoe.
I have done a few nights in the tercel and I'm 6'1, no problems.
I call it Chateau Tercel.

Haha! 'Chateau Tercel'; I like it! Yeah, the tercel tent worked really well with the canoe, but I don't think it would work without it; you'd at least need a roof rack to keep it away from the car a bit and allow fresh air in the windows. It actually worked a bit like an insulator too; it really kept the car cool (in addition to keeping the light out).

I agree, the tercel is pretty comfy to sleep in when set up right. I slept like a baby in mine. What I do is incline the front seats all the way forward. I throw a lot of my gear in the hole between the rear seats (which have been put down) and the front seats. This makes a flat area that is at least 6' long. I then lay a 4'x6'x6" air mattress in the rear of the car right up to the front seats. This gets me above the wheel wells comfortably. I put a 4" foamy on top of the air mattress to allow breathability. I put the sleeping bag on top of all that. I makes for not much head room, but who cares, you're sleeping well all night anyhow. When I wake up, I let the air out of the air mattress right away, and it gives me a little more room to move around. This setup means the tercel will sleep two without much trouble (for me - my wife and I). If you're sleeping between the wheel wells (instead of above), you can really only sleep one in the tercel (comfortably anyhow).

[Typrus]

Are your speaker mounts removed? I've been tempted to rig an assembly to mount 6" speakers up on the sides, pointed in to give more room. I go to the drive-in periodically and it makes it hard to stuff myself and 2 girls in the back.
Very nice shots. You obviously have a good feel for a real organic balance, or some good education.
I wish I could offer some nice green shots, but everything around my house is brown, tan or grey.

[GTSSportCoupe]

Are your speaker mounts removed? I've been tempted to rig an assembly to mount 6" speakers up on the sides, pointed in to give more room. I go to the drive-in periodically and it makes it hard to stuff myself and 2 girls in the back.
Very nice shots. You obviously have a good feel for a real organic balance, or some good education.
I wish I could offer some nice green shots, but everything around my house is brown, tan or grey.

Hey, thanks for the nice comments re: the pics. I love taking photographs, even though I'm pretty amateur. Yes, I did remove the speaker mounts and the trunk cover thingy for the trip. It sucked, because I have 6x9's in the back (mounted into the trunk cover - no speakers in the stock location anymore), and little 4's in the front. So with my 6x9's left at home, I couldn't even hear the music over the road noise on the back roads!!

[takza]

I'm wondering...is this on the inside passage side or the ocean side? Nice pics for sure.

Looks like you'd have to watch the bedrock there when offroading...a good drop onto solid rock sort of harms the trans some.

[GTSSportCoupe]

I'm wondering...is this on the inside passage side or the ocean side? Nice pics for sure.

Looks like you'd have to watch the bedrock there when offroading...a good drop onto solid rock sort of harms the trans some.

Hey Takza, it was on the ocean side of south Vancouver island.

Yes, there was a lot of bed rock, and other large sharp rocks on most of the 4wd roads I hit. Definitely not nice on tires! Luckly I didn't slash mine or bottom out seriously.

[simon84]

[/quote]Are your speaker mounts removed? I've been tempted to rig an assembly to mount 6" speakers up on the sides

I have removed all of the rear cover and the speaker mounts and I have some speakers (4or 5 inch) mounted on plexiglass in the bottom part of the rear window. This also gives me another storage spot. When I did my rear lift, the upper shock mounts don't poke up so much so I can get rid of the covers that stick up on the wheel wells. I need to come up with a better replacement than duct tape.
I'll post some pics so you can check it out.

[simon84]

oops
I guess I don't have that quote thing figured out but you get the idea, right.

[MootsMan]

What can I say but that I am jealous !!