Ice Road Reality Check Please

If you are talking about the Alaskan ice road that was made famous by the great ice road truckers show on the boob tube, Lynden runs it daily in the summer, but we call it a gravel road then. lol
If a guy wanted to get on with them, last summer would have been the time to have done it, they were very busy all summer, much more so than most years.
We do have some actual winter ice roads, but they were never seen on the show, as far as I know.

 

how often ice get broken and truck goes under ice?

 

Just curious. How many miles do you run a day on rock.

 

The ice road that was featured on tv is our haul road, aka the dalton highway, there has never been a truck fall through the ice on it, and never will be unless he runs off the road somewhere, there is a road under that ice. We run the same road year round.

It is 512 miles one way, but when you leave town the first 71 miles is paved. I have never figured how much exactly but there is probably a little over 100 more miles sort of paved, in other words paved, but the worst part of the road, because they can't hardly blade it, except in winter. I always run all the way at least, sometimes as much as half way back, so on gravel, somewhere between 330 and 500 miles a day, but normally 375 to 400, as I normally only start back and will either sleep 52 miles out up to 130 miles out, and that depends on weather, sometimes too.

 

I didn't answer the question, we do have trucks break through the ice roads, but not often. The oil companies actual ice roads are built using water trucks and monitored pretty much all the time, it next to impossible to fall through an oil company road, they move whole drilling rigs on them with out even dropping the derick. They can make you nervous in the spring when there is as much as a foot of open water on top of the ice you have to drive through, but it is pretty safe right up to the minute they close it. they do run it right up to the wire at times and may close it with your truck on the wrong end of it though, if so it has to stay a couple of months till the barges can run. lol

That said we do fall through in some river and stream crossings some, and it is not that unusual to drop a piece of equipment through when building winter roads to logging sites or to remote villages.
I have dropped through with my log truck, but never in a deep enough crossing to worry about losing it, the worst damage I have had was the ice cutting a tire or two, when it breaks it is sharp, and jumbles up in big pieces.

 

What do you think the freight bill is on a load of diesel going up the haul road........?

I know it’s all contract bla bla bla......


Just asking for a friend......

 

The last I knew it was 54 cents a gallon to deadhorse. It is all hauled on 5 axle trailers and I am not sure how many gallons exactly they get on, but gross 115,000 with them.

That was the contracted price, with fuel surcharge, an oo was getting around 4 grand a load, with company trailer.

 

Probably 12,000 gals.....maybe a hair more...

 

I’ve had 12,000 gals of ulsd on 6 axles total..... those were the days :-/