Road to Thutade Lake/Kemess Mine from McKenzie

[bowonly]

What can you tell some body who has never driven up this road about the trip? Looks like I may be driving it in early September. Road condition, kind of traffic, items to take (spare gas, spare tires, chains?) Anything helps. Thanks

[kennyj]

Looong drive. The road is usually pretty good. Take lots of gas and lots of spares.
kenny

[ryanb]

Gas, 2 way VHF radio, spareS. Haven't driven it recently but plenty of mine traffic still so it should be in good shape. There are various places to get gas up there, but none of them can be counted on, and I'm not sure of their current status.

[Mik]

Take 2-45 gallon drums of fuel to ( 1 to get back and 1 for driving around- and probably more depending on how much you drive around) and 4 spares for the truck and 2 spares for the trailer.....if the grader comes along, there are many, many,many, sharp rocks which will slash your tires. Watch out for the ORE trucks as they stop for no-one!

[swampthing]

I went in in june. The road was excellent. The trucks wernt hauling, had the road to myself. I took a radio the year before and while it was nice to know where the trucks were, they were all going really slow, no problems. I take one spare tire per vehichle but also carried a tire repair kit and pump. Never had a flat. You do need fuel. It took me 3/4 of a tank in and another one out in a superduty diesel. I took 2 full tanks extra. Its about 5 1/2 hours from mckenzie junction to the mine doing 70kmh. Nice country but thick as dog hair.

[chinooker]

shouldn't be any ore trucks kemess is shut down.

[sniper58]

Yup, the mine is shut down. In reclaimation mode now. I worked there for 13 years.
Road maintenance has been "as needed" since the middle of April.
Still freight and fuel trucks running on the road, but nowhere near the volume of traffic that there used to be.
Take enough fuel, food and tire repair stuff with you because you'll get nothing from the mine!

[jml11]

Just drove down from Black Lake yesterday (40kms north of Kemess), zero traffic until the turn off to Fort Ware then nice graded road. Kemess is not hauling right now so you don't need to worry about that. A few logging trucks along the Resevoir but nothing major. We had a 2-way but the road is two-lanes and no one was really calling anyways. No issues with flats, three pickups, two hauling horse trailers. Made the round trip from Mackenzie to Black Lake on about 140 liters of diesel fuel (full tank and one jerry can; we weren't hauling a trailer). It's about 400 kms from Mackenzie to Kemess all on pretty good dirt road. Feel free to send me a PM or post up other questions.

[Geo.338]

I spoke to the CO for the area the other day and the road is starting to get a bit rougher .From our experience ,we have hunted back there since before Kemess and the biggest lesson for us .Take lots of tires we have had so many flats .Also fuel .If you end up light on fuel it will impact your hunt and its a long way to town or the Omineca camp where you may or may not get fuel .

Back in the days of carbureted gasser pickups we would take 4 x 45 gallon drums .You could drive around alot more then as there were no vehicle restrictions then or deactivations.

Also make sure you have a good first aid kit .Play it safe .

Hey sniper 58 . Are you still at the mine ? Are you guys going underground up the road ?We are going up around 19 September .
Maybe we will see you this time .We intend to go up past the mine .