Monday, May 16, 2011

Driving Jeep Down the Yukon River


On April 20th 2011 Andy and I went to Eagle to bring his, worse for wear, Cherokee Jeep to Calico while the Yukon River was still frozen thick.

It all started out well enough, I drove the snow machine and Andy drove the jeep but when we got to the site of the summer sonar camp about 4 miles from home the snow got soft and deep. The jeep got stuck so Andy took the snow machine and went to Calico for lumber to fix the problem.

When he returned Andy built two ramps to help support the jeep over the deep snow. The distance was about 1/4 of a mile to get back onto just ice. He would drive the jeep onto one ramp, then we would move the other to the front and so on. It was a tedious task but it worked until there was a slip of a tire off the narrow boards and game over, the jeep was acutely stuck.

We abandoned the mission for that day and came back the following morning when the snow would be set hard after the below freezing night.

Armed with jacks it took some time but we did get it back on the ramp then about 8 feet at a time we edged the jeep to the end of the deep snow then it was easy going for a nice drive down the river and to it's new home at Calico.

2 comments:

Lynn said...

Good grief! It takes a lot of patience when living in the "north country." I have a greater appreciation for our Texas weather. :D

LB(cruiseshipblogger) said...

Wow, city dwellers would never have to deal with all that. Some of them even seem to have difficulty driving in the rain (in the Pacific Northwest where it rains most of the time.)