[Alex Blair (RIP)]

Originally Posted by Cletracker

Thanks for all kind words.
This expedition has caused me a lot of problems not only that I had to cancel it but due to other reasons. We managed to do some damage to the prepared snowmobile iceroad (don´t know the right word, sorry) that I now have to repair and as you know I´m a long long way from the scene of action. In my search for someone to help me repair the iceroad I got a tip of another UC stranded in the mountain! I called the owner and he confirmed it was an UC and it sits not that far from nearest road, about 2km. Will make a trip there this summer. Pansar is cut down and a Volvo engine has replaced the V8, don´t know anything more other than that for the moment.
Erik

Erik..
To build an ice road over a lake..
Step one...
Wait until the lake is frozen hard enough to support a light weight motorized plow or scraper..
Then plow the snow off the route that you want to make a road on..extra wide usually triple the width of the actual road surface..
That gets you down to ice only on the surface..you must do this as snow is an insulator and keeps the lake ice from freezing..
Next step ..
Every hundred meters bore a hole through the ice down the center of your proposed road..
Pump the lake out on the ice to spread out from the hole all around to over lap the next hole..
The water will start to freeze from the center of the road out to the edges..if it is cold enough this water will freeze in a matter of minutes..and start to thicken your ice road..
Step three..
Using pink fiber glass insulation form a plug to plug your ice hole to keep it from freezing..
Move on to your next hole and repeat procedure..
If it is cold enough,you can move quite quickly ,hole by hole along the route..drilling ..pumping..flooding..plugging..
When you get to the end ..go back to the start and go again..but this time you just have to pull out the frozen plug and start pumping..
In no time you will be able to drive a tank on your road..you can easily build two inches of ice on the road in a day..,depending on the temperature and length of road..lots of help is nice to have..
And Whiskey..!!

Each flood will add strength to your road..
The trick is to move quickly..keep the snow clear from the road and keep pumping and freezing water on it..By this method you are building the ice thickness from the top down..that is the way you build ice roads ..drilling pads..to drill for gas or oil or gold under muskeg or lakes that you can not access in summer time..
The ice will melt from the top AND the bottom so care must be taken when transporting anything by ice road..
Good luck..
Keep pictures... all of us want you to succeed..



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