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Snow Trac recovered from bottom of frozen river in Central Alaska

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arcticracer

New member
Hello everyone from the Fairbanks area, my neighbor and good friend Dave Lace owns a Snow Trac. We live on the Tanana River 10 miles south of Fairbanks, it is a glacial river that is swift, cold, and quite large. It is extremely silty in the summer but runs clear in the winter.

On Dec. 23rd a friend of Daves who had never driven his rig took it out onto the river with 4 others along for the ride. Long story short, he drove up to an open lead of water, and the ice cracked a bit. Everyone jumped out, but the driver. He tried to get into reverse but instead lurched forward, into the water. It started going down, and drifting downstream. When it hit bottom in 15 feet of water he escaped through the rear door and to the surface, where he was rescued by 2 of the guys who were with him. Lucky guy! He was only about 5 feet from where the open water ended.

Dave started planning the recovery. He enlisted a talented diver and support team from a local dive shop called Test the Waters. mitch is the diver and owner of the business, and he was able to dive to the rig using a tether, and hook a steel cable to the hitch receiver.

Next came the hard part, chopping a huge hole in 4 feet of ice. That was not easy, but 4 days ago we were ready for the recovery effort. We used a 28,000 lb. Gradall (like a Zoom boom) to pick out the ice chunks that had been cut with a huge chain saw. FInally, the hole was ready and we pulled it out! It had been underwater for 2 months. There is no rusting in freezing fresh water, so things looked fine. They did pull the engine though which had some silt in it. It was a tired engine so i think they plan to replace or rebuild it.

Hope you enjoy the pictures!
Dale in Alaska
 

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The first pic shows the open lead of water where it went in. 2 months ago the water was open right to where we fished it out. We were delayed by cold weather, January averaged -22, and it was 40 to 45 below for quite awhile.
 

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Success! 868F shows the owners, David and Chris Lace.
 

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Damn!

So how long was it under the river?

It must have taken the better part of the day to get it out of the water. I suspect cold water divers have some experience in Alaska trying to salvage all sorts of vehicles that crash through the ice.

Do you have any indication how much damage was caused by the water? Was there any body damage from hitting bottom?
 
arcticracer,

Welcome to the forum.

If I may pile on Bob's questions.

Once exposed, didn't everything freeze up solid? Did it need to be carried off the ice into an area to de-thaw?
 
It was in the water for 2 months. There was no damage, a soft landing I think. It drifted a good 50 yards before it settled on the bottom because of the air inside before it filled up. The driver (also a Dave) is indeed a very lucky man.

The diver Mitch is amazing, he said when he came up ( was underwater maybe 10-15 minutes) that he felt like he had run a marathon. Fighting the current, under the ice, etc. His business is at
http://www.testthewaters.com/retail/our_staff.htm

Here is Mitch's pic also.
 

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Hi BCZOOM, when we recovered the rig it was about +25 degrees so we had no problem. It took an hour or so to tow it back up the hill and into the garage.
 
Here's another question.
How quick did it sink?
Was there any float time or did it sink like a rock.
We use our Snow-Trac for getting to our island cabin on Skilak Lake and have always wondered how much time we would have to get out if we went through the ice.
Nice Pictures!!!
 
Ice Queen said:
Wow - what else can one say?
Click to expand...
Heck, I'd say someone owes the diver who jumped in that water a hot drink, and someone owes everyone else a whole lot of beer because its going to take a long time before anyone lends the driver any tools, vehicles, or anything else. :eek:

I can actually understand how it happened because of the odd location for the reverse gear in the Snow Trac's shift pattern it could be confusing for a new driver. Anyone who is used to a 4 speed manual transmission has to forget how to shift and actually THINK before shifting a Snow Trac's gears.
 
Snow Tracs use a VW engine and VW transmission that are mounted BACKWARDS in the vehicle.

So the gear shift pattern is backwards too! :pat:

Where you normally would find 1st gear is where 3rd gear is located. Where you normally would find 2nd gear is where 4th gear is located. Reverse is where you often find 5th on a 5 speed transmission.

It easier for people who have never driven a manual transmission to get used to the shift pattern than it is for those of us who had several manual tranny vehicles in our lives.
 
Thanks Bob!

Yikes!

Reverse would be confusing enough, but doesn't seem too bad. However, I'd have a nasty time not trying to start out in 3rd or dropping 1st from second....assuming I wasn't already in 4th!:eek:
 
Dale, the pictures are great at showing the recovery effort.

For those folks who have not seen Dale's PHOTO GALLERY please go take a look at all the photos he posted in there. It is simply amazing to see the process and the recovery.

LINK TO ARCTICRACER'S GALLERY :a1:
 
Cool! well, bloody freezing buy the looks of it!! Nice photo's and some picture that (Hopefully) we may never see again!
 
Dale, following up on Dan Brokaw's question, I too am curious how fast the Snow Trac went down, do you have any idea if it just sank like a rock (as I would suspect) or if it started going down slow?

Do I understand it correctly that the driver of the Snow Trac swam out, but the passengers all got out before the edge of the ice gave away completly?

I noticed in all the photos in this thread, plus in the photos of your PHOTO GALLERY that there was no picture of the driver. I'm sure he felt bad and while we can poke fun at him for nearly destroying a Snow Trac, I just wondered if he was part of the rescue crew, or if his photo belongs below :D
 

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Snowcat Operations said:
Well I guess that answers that question. They dont float worth a damn! Pontoons anyone?
Click to expand...

But if he had my Kristi KT4 he would have paddled around like a duck .... heehee :moon:
Big Al
 
I was not at the scene of the mishap, but I talked to those who were including the driver. What he said was something like "I couldn't get the doors open because water was coming into the rig. I had to wait until it was full of water, by that time I was on the bottom."

Also, it drifted almost 50 yards before settling on the bottom, once it settled it did not move an inch for 2 months.

So it looks to me that it did not sink like a rock but slowly, how slowly is hard to tell. If you are in a Snow Trac (or any vehicle) that is sinking, I think youhave to wait until it fills up before you will get out.

The driver Dave was involved with the ice cutting, and recovery. He is in the photos but I don't want to ID him. He was frozen when he got out and had to be rushed to the house and into a warm shower and was fine.
 
Hey Bob ,

If you really want to know how fast a SnowTrac will sink , we could haul yours out to a lake and give it a try ???? I have a stop watch ....

BigAl:coolshade
 
More interesting tidbits....... Owner Dave said he could see the glow of the headlights for a long time, eerie.

He bought one of those underwater cameras at Sportsman Warehouse, and we drilled holes in the ice, dropped the camera down on a pole to locate the machine. It was like one of those undersea hunter episodes, but it was only about 8 feet down to the top of the roof rack.

Water is a formidable and unforgiving medium, things can be so hard to get to yet so close.
 
Just curious, but did the Wildlife Department (or whatever it is called in Alaska) require the salvage operation to prevent pollution of the river?

I have no clue what it cost to haul it out of the river, but I'd almost guess that unless most of those folks were volunteers, that the cost of the rescue was equal to the cost of buying another Snow Trac!
 
Nobody knew about the rescue, until now, so there was no pressure to pull it out. All the labor was volunteer, co-workers, friends, etc. The Gradall was brought from Dave's workplace.
 
It made me feel real cold just looking at those pictures again. We had about four flakes of snow today, I got real exited, but it came to nothing! I want some SNOW!!!
 
[Hello, Yes the driver paid for all or at least most of the recovery, the equipment to remove the rig was donated by the owner of a local airline, Everts Air Cargo, all of the labor minus the diver was friends and co-workers.
 
B_Skurka said:
Just curious, but did the Wildlife Department (or whatever it is called in Alaska) require the salvage operation to prevent pollution of the river?

I have no clue what it cost to haul it out of the river, but I'd almost guess that unless most of those folks were volunteers, that the cost of the rescue was equal to the cost of buying another Snow Trac!
Click to expand...

The cost of the recovery which unknown to all is classified, but I can tell you that before the tally for repairs it is quite a bit less than the cost of another rig. What was not stated is that this would be the second hole attempted in the river, there was one started about 50 yards downstream, it was not used because we hit and area that the ice was about 10 or more feet thick. The plan then was to drag it towards a sand bar using a winch on a truck then up on to the ice-shelf. We did not have use of the Gradall at that time.:o
 
chris . . . Welcome to the Forums!

It sure sounds like a bunch of good people chipped in to turn an accident into a party. A cold party involving a lot of work, but at least it was a party. Its nice to see when people pull together like that for a good cause.
 
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