OK - so you have seen what it is like in the cold of winter and heard how safe (except for the sliding), it feels driving on the ice roads.
Here is something else to think about. Overflows! I described them a little when I talked about getting into one in a snowmobile. In that case you don't see the water just under the snow surface but you certainly know when you have hit it!
Compare these two pictures...
The first was taken near the
end of April and the latter
was taken a few weeks later. |
|
Overflows on the iceroads are usually different in that you can generally see them. In most cases the water is flowing over the road ice and looks like ponds beginning to freeze over. Now this water is coming through the ice,which as you might surmise means there is a crack or break in the ice somewhere. One can only hope that it is not directly under the road, and this is usually the case as the road ice is generally about twice as thick as the surrounding ice. But vehicles do sometimes break through.... Click here to see what can happen..
Moving out the last equipment a few days before the ice road disappeared!
Some of the other problems associated with overflows on the ice roads include;
--Freezing of the overflow just enough so that a vehicle can start to drive over it, then breaking through and droping down to the original ice surface. The vehicle then can not move and if it is cold it could become frozen in with the rapidly freezing overflow.
--The overflows can also get quite deep and even trucks have been known to get swamped by a deep overflow.
--Here is one not a lot of us southerners might think about... If it is cold and you drive through an overflow the water spraying up can cover your vehicle and - yup you got it - freeze. You can't see through an ice covered window and sometimes you might not even be able to open a door to get out to scrape off the window!
Ice road or open water?
On the Ice Road when 