Getting a job on "Ice Road Truckers?"

I was offered a run to Yellownife during late January. Would have been a pleasant -60 F up there.

I told them, I do not believe my truck was made to run in those temperatures. I certainly do know I wasn't. If it broke, you froze. There are limits of what I will do to get paid. That load exceeded them.


I have run in many below temps to about -40 F. I just had to decline.

Wildkat is right, there are no phones up there, no trees, not much traffic. I tend to carry extra supplies because of the need to do own repairs.

 

Should have taken it Roadmedic...ya could have seen the "buffalo" trails I run on everyday! For sure, it's mighty primative up there.Ahhh -40 is balmy. We had nearly a month last winter that the temps didn't come above -60 & we got our first snow Labour Day weekend & it finally all melted away by the May long weekend...that's 9 MONTHS of winter BLECH!

It reminds me of a funny story...

About 10 years ago I saw a guy fueling in Edmonton (my home base)...it was early Feb (our coldest month), bloody cold -30's or -40's & the wind.... anyway this poor guy was from Ellensburg, Indiana. I don't think he'd ever seen it that cold before, he had no winter front...not even the cheapy things you buy at the truck dealerships...mine is custom made, thick, thick. You could tell just by listening to his truck it was freezing up, he had just a like jean jacket & penny loafers on...there was 2 FEET of snow on the ground. He was going to Alaska...his dispatcher told him to fuel BEFORE he crossed the border & not again till he got to Alaska...boy was he DUMB...the poor guy crossed at Portal, Sask, needless to say when he got to Edmonton 12 hours later he was running on FUMES. And he still had another 36 hours to Alaska

I told him to go buy himself a winterfront, some boots, mitts, a hat & for sure some good fuel conditioner...NOT that Howes crap you guys use down there...it's no good for the extremes we deal with.

Anyway he was going to Alaska & I was on my way to Yellowknife...I escorted him to Valleyview & pointed him in the right direction...never heard if he actually made it there, but I have often wondered...

 

Phones do not work up there, I went for 3 days of driving up there with no cell phone reception. Traffic was few and far in between. I saw maybe 30 vehicles from yellowknife to high level at the begining of march. The trees that are up there are very short and small. Permafrost makes it kind of hard to grow, but they still grow. The truck that I ran up there did not have any special cold weather equipment on it. It was just as if it had left the factory. I did have a mechanical issue which did require me to work on the vehicle on the side of the road. I ended up just driving with the truck in a somewhat broken state.

This is the lake that Wildkat was refering to. In the warmer months a ferry takes you across here. This is south of Yellowknife.

This is just west of yellowkinfe,


This is where I stayed for a few days,


I did not ever go out onto the ice road. I don't think that I would really want to. The place that we stayed did offer use jobs to take a few loads up north, had a good laugh and said no. We had other business to attend to.

 

That's the MacKenzie River crossing there Sportster...even that crossing can be neeve wracking for a rookie. I don't mind it so much, I just don't like it in the spring when there's so much water on the ice.

I remember 3 years ago crossing the last crossing of the year watch a truck in front of me crossing...you have to stay 1000 yards apart, I could have sworn he MOVED sideways on the ice....I actually think he did cause he suddenly stopped dead on the ice & called me on the radio & asked me if I saw something wonky. I wasn't deadly sure, but I sure didn't want to scare him since he was out quite a ways on the ice.

It sure made me nervous when I crossed...DOT were escorting oversized loads & only one at a time was alowed to cross, they would close the road if an oversize had to cross & the poor bugger had to cross alone.

 

Hey WildKat,

Just curious, how did you get into driving on the ice-roads, and how long have you been at it? R&R

 

Up here in the Yukon it is very similar to the ice roads. While I almost went last year our company never got the final call to come because of a slow year we were told. I was going to be doing 8 and 9 axle low-bedding.

Here is a story about breaking down to put what WildKat says into perspective. I had just got out of a bush road and it was about -50 C out.

I got onto the highway but before anyone says that is easy driving this is a highway that the closest communities are 400km apart and I was halfway inbetween them.
The high is a hardly maintained gravel road in the summer and an even less maintained snow cover road in the winter.

So anyways I get going and am up to about 70km/h when all my tractor brakes lock up on me. So after pulling the seat cover out of my butt I went out to see what had happened. My main line running to a brake pot had blown apart. I had to get underneath the truck in the dark with a flashlight and see what I could do to get the truck going.

Caging the brakes was not an option so I had to swap the blown line for the other line that applied the brakes. 2 hours later and many curse words, quick warm-ups in the cab and very frozen everything I finally got going again.

I was lucky because I had a small propane torch and a large tiger torch to warm everything up or else as I was taking stuff apart it would have snapped on me.

And another bit of info to keep truck warm in those temperatures we run thick winterfronts and belly tarps stretching from the front of the bumper to behind the transmission. If we do not do this the engine oil temp does not come up on the gauge at all and the coolant never gets close to 180 no matter how hard the truck is working.


Even with all this I still wouldn't want to drive anywhere else.

 

Is any trucker?

 

by the way.. the Ice Road truckers can come to the rockies any time.. we dont have flat ice on a lake. we have 8 percen grades on ice in white out conditions even today.. bring it guys .. come to mountain man country. we dont stop for weather here. people dont stop eating cuz its thanks giving. kroger trucks move no matter what. back to back blizzards dont mean dicktry a mountain pass at 3am in a blizzard with zero sight and straight down fully loaded.. just my opinion test it. we do this for a living here too... brisk transportation dares ya..

 

If you are going to run your mouth, at least have a fact or two to back it up.

The lowest temperature in Wyoming, -63°, was recorded on February 9, 1933 at Moran.