Rookies, Wannabees, & superheroes. This is a true run about Heavy Haul.

Yup, Nate's got it...I was delayed because of weather for a couple of days. Now I'm trying to catch up. Just did two loads in six days, got back into YK tonight. I load number three and blast (yeah right) first thing in the am...I've been too tired to finish my write-up. Sound slime I'm loading another road closure load after that so hopefully I'll have some time to catch up on my story...
The road is scheduled to be open until March 25th...one of the security officers tonight mentioned that the mine project I'm working on has requested a 10 day extension...oh goody, remember the beginning of this story right? I left home to load Jan 3rd! I'm starting to get a little silly. Somebody is gonna get darn good and drunk when this is over!

...to be continued...I promise

 

The Building...


and so it continues...
The plan is to schedule a road closure to move twelve 16' to 20' wide loads on Monday March 2nd.
Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men...mother nature, your a b!$€h! Aye she blows cap'n, and blow she did! Wind speed 70km/hr (45mph) with gusts over 100 (62) Sunday evening and night! Uh yeah, the road was CLOSED!
I'm shocked!
Blasphemy you say ole chap!
Why would it be easy, not a dam thing about this load has been yet! Why yes bartender, I will have another double! Yes the bars are closed here Sundays, thankfully, we went to the hotel prepared.
Monday, oh what a hangover!
So the word on the street on Tues is, we go Wednesday, now broke into two groups...
Wednesday March 4th, we got us a CONVOY,
The drivers all meet at 7am, we rendezvous with the pilots at 8 to gather paperwork and get hooked up and start our pre-trips...
We roll shortly before 10am.
Now the fun begins, so I think...
For those who have never been up in the ice roads north of YK, you take the Ingraham Trail 69km to the turn onto the ice road. Ingraham Trail, pleas take note of the second word in that title...yup trail! It's a quaint little scenic drive down a beautiful little country road...ahem...with no shoulders, steep drop offs, and many nice tight little corners. Remember the original description right? 118' long. Oh yeah, and just for fun lots of nice little dips and doodles in the road! the ain't no country here baby, it's all rock n roll! I must admit, I am still amazed at the amount of bob, weave, and heel over that this trailer will do and I can still pull it back up straight. It's kinda cool, it freaks the crap out of my pilot cars and anybody else following watching. I don't recall if I mentioned this in the original report with the police escorts in ON, but the rear police escort, this was her first time, and she'd never followed or watched one of these closely, she got some Dramamine for the second day...
Now this is my fourth load into the mine, so I've learned some with my lil bit of experience...the most important of which, I can't get enough clearance, I'm still gonna bottom out in places, so I shimmed the crap out of the trailer. I've never had it this high before. I've got 20" under the pinjoint at the transition and 22" at the front with 37 1/2' of well/46 1/2' of inner bridge. That means I'm about 30" of ground clearance on the load at the front...hint, remember this point!
Enough babble, the journey continues...
Up the Ingraham Trail we go, I'm in the back of the group of four heavy loads, as usual while four light but wide ones are behind. Rockin and rolling, bobbin and weaving I go. The DOT and Security have the road closed, so I get to use the whole thing, whatever I want, just go for it...you see where this is going right?

Oh yeah, you guessed it, NOT kidding, and in a curve where I'm against the left shoulder to keep the back of the trailer out of the right ditch! I said an extra thank you to the big guy upstairs that night that there was a driveway right there for the pie plate eyed four wheeler to bail into! Just to make sure, thanks again big guy!
Once again, ask yourself, are you sure you really want to do this? These moments will take your breathe away, along with other very unpleasant things!
I think it took about 6-7km to get my heart rate back into the yellow zone after that one. Meanwhile, back at the wheel we continue un eventfully rockin up to Cold Street, and away we goooo...
Security has done a bang up fantastic job of controlling the JVWR, trucks are stopped everywhere and all the portages are free of oncoming traffic for us, we just sail right along...at 25km/hr on the ice. But yee ha, with this much well in the wagon, and all the twists and rollers on the portages never mind rock n roll, we are full blown heavy metal! Remember that little point I made earlier about ground clearance? The load is 17' wide, that's twice a standard 8'6" trailer, so I've got 4'3" hangin out each side, 30" off the ground...nope make that 60+" on one side! yup she touched...twice! I actually grabbed the HS handle, I thought I was goin over. I was pretty happy that I have the power & gearing to mash it and pull her back up. I was pretty happy when we finally got north of the really rocky portages, way to go stupid, you just said you were happy...

...to be continued...

 

The Building P2

Relax, it was just a cliffhanger...

meanwhile, previously on this channel...

...to be continued...

you learn a few things about yourself when your that bored off your rocker and you have an extremely over active imagination...like how many little voices you truly have in your head. And I got one little b@$t@rd I can't stand! I got a feeling him and I are gonna have a knock down drag out before this gig is over.
...btw, I'm telling this story while I'm driving across the long lakes, are the voices and my boredom showing through??? I just hope this is entertaining some of you...
Anyways, we pile up the four of us heavy ones in Portage 43, I jump in with the pilot car and off to 44 to park the four 16 1/2 - 18' wides we go. We get everyone parked, and pile into the pilot cars to head into Lockhart to see what's for dinner!
Eh, no big deal, there's only 36 trucks destined for the same mine as us already here! They release four trucks every 20 minutes. Yup, that's 3 hrs before we get released AFTER the road gets opened...but wait, that's only the ones for our mine, there are trucks here for four other mines as well! Oh boy, he's back

Bellies full, lies told & believed, yeah right, it's back to the trucks we go. We all unhooked now that the brakes and wheels have cooled and we won't be frozen down and bobtail into camp. Time for showers, then off to dreamland...
Next morning, we're having breakfast, believing everyone's stories, yeah right, then migrate over to the big table to tell more...
whispers, rumbles, ears perk up, there's a tingle in the air...they've found another route, the roads open...but only 38" of ice, so only light loads...out comes the calculator, GVW divided by sq.ft. of ice...

the number called wasn't me...

MUTINY!!!

We race to the trailers before the rocks get hurled at us, hook up, pre-trip, & we're off to the races, at 30km/hr...giggle...
The rest if the ride up the JVWR is un-eventful, and then...