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Tractor Talk Discussion Forum

O.T. ICE SAFETY (long post_)

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phil lowe

01-31-2007 15:19:43




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Hi guy's I've been trying to figure out who may be able to answer a question I have regarding ice safety,and I figure someone out there in tractor land may know the answer..so here goes
We've got little snow in our parts this year ,but the lakes are frozen quite well!! well so I thought .I checked all the ice condition lines and they say lakes are 6 to 8 inches thick ,,so off I go with my dogs for a little ski on the lakes ,lots of people out skating on small lakes near my home ,but I wanted to go to a fairly large lake up the road a bit..been a long week at work and I needed to blow off some steam !!
So off we go went pretty good for a while then I started noticing narrow cracks in the ice ..inch or two wide at first ,then 4 to 5 " wides ,,,oops my beagle falls in ....now the fun started ,,he climbed out but would not move ...so I get a good run off an ski back for him ,,very good skating ice so I had lots a speed .I shove him back from the crack and look down ,ice is at least 6 inches think ,,but I'm getting nervous now and beeing 3/4 of a mile from shore ,,well lets say I had less butterfly's the day I got married !!!!
anyway I got to tie the beagle on to a toe line I had and literally had to drag him the whole way off this dang lake ,,,his legs spread eagled and laying flat ,,yup good work out ,should a hooked him to the other dog ,my boxer ,,but I was afraid he'd go wonky on me too..I know I should a just left him there and got my butt safe ,but that ain't my way ,and I still think the ice was safe ,,
I saw few more of these cracks in the ice and just skied my butt cross them and hoped for the best,,got out OK ,,just freaked out !!
well my question What was going on with the ice,anyone seen this before .I ski backcountry lake for years and never seen this ,,but mostly on smaller lakes ,so ??? fill me in guys

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LA in Wi.

02-01-2007 07:48:42




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 Re: O.T. ICE SAFETY (long post_) in reply to phil lowe, 01-31-2007 15:19:43  
Near the end of your message you wrote "I still think the ice was safe"....

Here in Wisconsin I have been reminded several times by friends who always say "Ice is NEVER safe". These friends are divers who help bring up vehicles that fell thru and are at lake bottom. I lived on a 17,000 A. lake here for 24 yrs; no matter how cold and for how long you would find ice up to 24" thick and then not very far away the ice could be barely thick enough to walk on; lakes do have slow water currents even in the winter and that plays havoc with ice thicknesses. Trickiest is snow cover as it insulates ice. Deep booming sounds (especially at night with below zero temps) usually mean ice is thickening...it then expands and needs to push itself around a bit.

Last winter we were ice fishing 200 mi north of the border near Red Lake, Ontario. Ice was 4ft thick! Beautiful fluffy snow was 2 ft thick. Power auger motor was almost touching ice surface when it got thru to water. We "knew" ice was safe. Then we heard next day that 50 mi. north of us (up same road we used) a guy with a bulldozer broke thru and drowned. (He was building an ice road for 130,000 lb logging truck trains to use).

So it's all relative: Is ice safe? For what? Walking on it? Driving on it? For a bulldozer?
Ice is NEVER safe.

Oh yeah...we caught our limit of big walleyes!!

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Billy NY

02-01-2007 05:47:11




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 Re: O.T. ICE SAFETY (long post_) in reply to phil lowe, 01-31-2007 15:19:43  
The King of Obsolete from Lynn Lake Manitoba, would be a good person to speak with on this subject. Check out his website, he frequents the ACMOC & ACME forums, and the one on crawlers here at YT, should be able to send him some smoke signals and get in touch with him without too much trouble.



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Blue3992 (N Illinois)

02-01-2007 03:23:08




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 Re: O.T. ICE SAFETY (long post_) in reply to phil lowe, 01-31-2007 15:19:43  
Glad you were able to get out safely.

The latest Popular Mechanics (I think) had an interesting article on the semis that drive across frozen lakes to supply the diamond mines up north. Some good info on the mechanics of ice.



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Thack

01-31-2007 19:26:01




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 Re: O.T. ICE SAFETY (long post_) in reply to phil lowe, 01-31-2007 15:19:43  
The booming and cracking you see and hear is the ice responding to temp changes.



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Rick Kr

01-31-2007 17:54:37




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 Re: O.T. ICE SAFETY (long post_) in reply to phil lowe, 01-31-2007 15:19:43  
I am scared to death of ice. Fell through as a kid.

Went on my pond (1 ac) the other day and heard the real deep sounding cracks, sounds like a deep boom. Well my ice is 5" thick and it still stress cracked just from my weight. Spudded a couples holes around the pond, 5-6 inches everywhere.

Spent years as a kid ice fishing with dad and grandpa. Couple times as the wind would come up or sun would come out. You would hear those same deep sounds. Did actually see the ice open up once like you say. Had to jump over it. You could see the ice was thick, at least 6 inches.

Dad and grandpa said that was just stress cracking from the wind or sun. Still kinda eerie.

I"ll wait for someone a lot smarter than me to answer your question, cause I still wonder how you know when the ice is trully safe.

Rick

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Jon Hagen

01-31-2007 19:24:00




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 Re: O.T. ICE SAFETY (long post_) in reply to Rick Kr, 01-31-2007 17:54:37  
Yeah, we have a couple of guys went ice fishing a week ago. nothing has been seen of them or their car. No action on their cell phones or credit cards. Athorities say the water where they intended to fish is 75+ ft deep. Their still searching, but we are going to have a few days of storm and very cold through the weekend.



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