Ice Road Truckers meets Mad Max

It is already the middle of March and only now do we finally have good enough ice and semi-adequate snow cover in the woods to get firewood. With spring now quickly approaching and the weather being highly unpredictable we need to get as much wood cut and hauled from up the lake as quickly as possible. The little Nissan truck can hold the equivalent of two snowmachine sled loads so it was the obvious choice to try first. It is only two wheel drive, so with chains as required equipment, and speed giving the ability to persevere through deepening snow drifts, off I drove, pedal down. The vehicle required constant correction to maneuver the truck around the deepest parts of the snowdrifts as the rear wheels were almost constantly spinning on either glare ice or powdered snow. Add a stiff cross wind into the equation and it was quite a ride, sashaying back and forth, trying to impact the snowdrifts straight-on rather than sideways, and keeping the speed up to punch through the drifts with and explosive plume of powder. Most of the time my windshield is covered in snow and since the windshield wipers don't work I am driving with the window rolled down and my head out to be able to see.
This system worked quite well for awhile, the poor little truck however, happened to be missing the inner fender-well on the left-hand side, and why not? it doesn't have a bumper, working headlights, or half a rear window either. The missing fender-well is not a big deal, except this is where the air intake was and soon the air filter and the intake hose were clogged with snow. Evidently when this unusual phenomenon happens it creates enough suction from the throttle body to suck engine oil into the throttle body. This results in a giant cloud of blue smoke (burning oil) and a complete loss of engine power. So, there I sit, exactly halfway from nowhere, cleaning snow from the air filter and disconnecting the hose from the fender inlet. As luck would have it, the truck started, once again allowing me to rocket across the frozen lake with a rhythmic spray of powder with each drift I conquered.
On occasion a snow drift will have a hard enough center to actually drive the truck on top of without sinking into the snow. This is desirable unless you are traveling at a high rate of speed with a load of fresh cut logs on the back, then it becomes a launch pad. Murphy's law comes into full force and the heaviest, largest log you spent the better of 5 minutes wrestling up on the truck, jettisons itself off with a complete disregard for the impending pain and agony you will now endure loading it again. To make matters worse, I realize only to late that the seemingly small snowdrift the truck came to rest in is actually another larger drift with a hard center of which the truck is now high-centered on. Lucky for me I have a load of sticks to use to dig myself out with........

One of the other wood haulers (using a snowmachine) eventually came along and we went back to get the tractor and pushed it out of the drift. Needless to say, I quickly switched to the snowmachine and sled.

1990 something Nissan whatchamacallit


Me and My Ride