Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

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It looks like their car (Toyota Chaser) was not fit for the purpose. I mean, looking at the car's wikipedia page I can see a city sedan that is definitely not adequate for off-road driving conditions at minus 40-50 degrees Celsius.

Judging by a couple of photos I could find on Google Maps it looks like in the summer the road is barely accessible using vehicles like the famous UAZ-452, I'm talking about this photo [2] showing a UAZ-452 crossing a river. In the winter I saw that these two people did it with a heavily equipped Toyota off-roader [3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Chaser#6th_Generation_(...

[2] https://www.google.com/maps/@63.351051,140.967979,3a,75y,90t...

[3] https://www.google.com/maps/@63.258317,143.201208,3a,75y,90t...

WOW! I would not have expected that be the car used on the "Highway of Bones" with insane levels of cold! I hope they were running it with chains at a minimum.

If you dress right, have a good thermal sleeping bag, have calories in your system, you can do pretty well. A fair number of sleeping bags have survival temps as low as negative -40. I've done OK once or twice at surprising levels of cold (sleeping in the back of car / SUV on a ski trip other winter trek is not end of world, even without cars heater).

Not totally clear still why this is a story about google.

In the winter the road is packed ice and easy from the vehicle traffic and the rivers can be driven over rather than forded.

In summer there are sections of mud pit, swamps, river crossings because the road is unmaintained. Anything with at least three wheels and a heated cab is fine in winter.

If the vehicle was actually unsuitible they would have gotten stuck within walking distance of town instead of putting a branch through the radiator trying to make an N-point turn in the bush after going the wrong way (probably down some little side fork).

Well, types who buy cars like these[1] are usually not the type who cares. Those are mostly known as cheap cars for kids to put on 1 megawatt turbos, and giant spoilers on.

[1]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0ONai65wZDk

The 2nd pic is great

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