Ice Run Report for

January 23, 2008

 

Here we are loaded, gassed, and ready to go. With three coolers (1800 pounds of ice and 300 pounds of cooler), two full gas tanks (350 pounds), two big guys and a dog (about 500 pounds), and the usual tools (about 400 pounds)...we're seriously overloaded for a "quarter ton" truck. A ton and a half at least, pushing two tons probably....

Ford tough.

If you remember early December's Ice Run, we've already broken a drive shaft once....not looking forward to breaking another.

 

I picked up my assistant, Will M. and then we grabbed some lunch to eat on the drive up the canyon and took of for the Nederlands....

 

 

 

Once we got to Ned, we went straight to the Institute where we parked at the end of the driveway and broke a trail up to the Shed.

 

It's a long haul with sleds. You can only carry a couple hundred pounds at a time (3 blocks) but at least the weather was nice.

Sometimes it was pretty tough sledding....no snow. Sometimes we made our own snow trail.

 

Eventually, we got to the shed and started offloading and then we turned around and went for another load. Whew!

We piled it up until we had enough to justify opening the box...

The naked pieces of ice were put in the coolers to preserve the blocks. It's how the company assures us that we get our full count of ice when we finally get it, days after it's packed in the coolers. When we opened the box, we saw a pretty crystal.

We also saw that there was approximately 2-300 pounds of ice left.

You can see Grandpa's birthday/millenium cake pan as well as the ice cream (if you look closely at the lower left corner) we keep around for when Grandpa likes to party.

 

You can also see the sensor wires with tags identifying the head and toe in the lower right corner.

Our temperature was a warmish -65F...

 

We toss all the small leftover pieces from last time into the smaller spaces around the sarcophagus. then we start to load in the 60 pound blocks, one at a time.

Eventually, after more hauls and loadings, we get 'er done!

Like I said in the beginning...this job it tough on man and equipment. After hauling almost a dozen loads, one after another, the sled got so cold, it became brittle and cracked...

 

Good thing we had two.....

 

We wrapped things up and loaded it all back into the truck and then we headed down the hill.

 

Next run is scheduled for February 27...