What is the best hard side truck camper for off road use. That is rough graded dirt roads. Not a hiking trail. I was thinking of a northern lite. Does anyone have an opinion?
Totally agree with Kenny. Same with Northern Light, very well made shells but same ole interior fit out.
i live next to the northern lite and bigfoot factory but i never work on any bigfoot.
I use my NL off pavement regularly. It is solid as day one after a couple of years of hard use. My only complaint is the awesome Seitz windows are easy to bush scratch. I live in BC where we have dense forests and my windows are getting a bit marked up. All the drawers, seat boxes etc are built with Baltic birch plywood and there is no particleboard anywhere. Quality is phenomenal compared to Bigfoot.
Not sure which Northern Lite you’ve been in, but they are not even remotely the same as the Bigfoot interiors.
Since they are not built in the same factory, or even the same town you must have a REALLY BIG house!
We had considered a Four Wheel Camper before learning about the issues with condensation in cold and damp conditions, which pretty much define the PNW on the west side of the Cascades as well as B.C. and the Yukon. The overhanging limbs do severely limit the use of the hard sided camper in the same forests.And a quick picture of last weekends camp spot. The route into this amazing little place was exceptionally tight, with some very tight corners ,and a lot of overhang above.
Why not get a Overland Explorer Camp X. It is a fully insulated pop up camper and we just came back from the NWT and it had no issues with condensation. Details are in the pop up section.We had considered a Four Wheel Camper before learning about the issues with condensation in cold and damp conditions, which pretty much define the PNW on the west side of the Cascades as well as B.C. and the Yukon. The overhanging limbs do severely limit the use of the hard sided camper in the same forests.
That's a lovely spot.
That's a nice rig, and it's about $15,000 more than what we bought.Why not get a Overland Explorer Camp X. It is a fully insulated pop up camper and we just came back from the NWT and it had no issues with condensation. Details are in the pop up section.
We've picked up our new Capri Retreat in Bozeman and it now sits on our 2013 1/2 ton GMC Z71 "All Terrain" extended bed truck.
View attachment 473168While it has not been off road in the true sense of the term, it has been driven over a lot of FS roads in Idaho and Washington, including some bone jarring and pot-hole ridden two tracks. It weighs about 1300 lbs and with our minimalist approach has done well both on the highway and on the FS roads. I especially like the interior turnbuckles used to hold it in place. Having lines protruding from the side of the camper seems likely to catch on brush, not to mention the aesthetics.
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We had initially hoped to purchase a Pastime, and I phoned their dealer right after buying the truck to start a build. Unfortunately, they are no longer building campers. I looked at Travel-Lite but it seems that most of what was available in the PNW had all the bells and whistles which brought the weight well above the trucks GVWR and included things we don't need like a water heater, a.c., t.v., built in stove, and North-South beds. We learned a lot on our 3-year road trip about keeping things simple and having less clutter was the major take-away.
Capri was easy to work with on our build. That included finding a place for our ARB 50 qt fridge seen above. It is much lighter than their standard fridge, uses .87 amps per hour, sits lower and is removable. I didn't order a table as it would take up too much room, instead we use a small REI folding table that sits on the starboard bench when eating and hanging out inside. A toilet sits under the bench seen below at the door. The Snow Peak Baja stove allows for inside or outside use. The Catalytic furnace is a nod to winter travel. The build quality is better than what we saw in the Pastimes.
It does well in dirt and we plan on spending a couple of months in the southwest this winter and will see how it does in sand.
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