Well i am not sure how to start this next section but here goes, all was going good ,going up the Ingram Trail with two Newfoundlanders working out here with Westcan we arrived at the meadows and waited for our departcher time, this is the last or the first which ever way you look at it, security check point, from here we head out across the lakes and portages heading for Lockheart camp where we planned to stop for a few hours
Chris was in the lead bob second and me trailing behind keeping one eye out for security pick ups, they like to catch you speeding on and off portages at 10kph as well as other things.
All was good for the next couple of hours going across land and lake and it started to get dark still no problem truck was running good to we then hit Gordon lake the first big frozen lake i had been on until somewhere in the middle of nowhere my transmission service light came on up came the fault light flashing on and it had stuck in gear too , now this has happen to me before so i know the drill.
I shouted the guys and told them i had no choice but to stop on the ice , turn all the power off so the computer re sets, it drops into neutral and off we go again and that if they saw my lights go out i had not gone through the ice . and if it didn't re set then i would be in the **** ,you have about 2 hours to get off or you will go through as the ice cracks all round until you just sink.
I stopped turned the engine off and jumped out and boy it was dark, pitch black , i turned the switch and all went out waited Watt seemed hours before i flicked it back on and heard the sound of the gearbox going back into neutral , jumped back in and started it up and drove off to catch the lads up,
All was for about the next hour and we were heading for charlies hill a steep ice covered slope but just before there a fault light came on again but this time it was my exhaust re gen light but again it was asking for a parked re gen and never had this truck asked for one of these and if you carry on it will shut the engine down[ its the exhaust filter full and needs burning out basically]
I was talking to the guys as i went up the hill and have it on video but cant get it to up load, but didn't realise they could not here me ,so we stopped at the top somewhere and sat for 15mins while it did its thing, off we went again heading for Lockheart about 2 hours away when again a fault light came on ******* ******* truck, oh well i can clear this when i get to Lockheart or so i thought.
so before i got to lockheart camp just as i was about half a mile from coming off the ice i noticed my lights dimming on the dash and headlights dim then they would all come back and then go off again **** SAKE, THIS ******* truck, and it was stuck in gear again too, but this time i knew something was wrong as it was only running on 5 then 4 as i pulled off the ice into the parking, all this time Chris and bob could not hear me either and i just got it out the way before it Finlay stopped , out of juice[battery]
Somewhere around charlies hill i had a tension pulley pack up which took both my fan and my alternator belts off.
so i got in touch with RTL they sent a service truck out to me with parts 7 hours later we swapped all the bits new pulleys belts alternator, un froze the truck with a big heater and the battery's it fired up and i could head off to the mine .
Chris and Bob had left so i tagged on with another group
what a first trip and its only half way up to the mine
deep joy
THE ROAD
We got to the mine late in the day after a long trip up mc kay lake nearly 6 hours as the weather was closing in with a storm[ un be known to us the biggest storm in 5 years]i tipped my prill and was parked up with all the other trucks and there we sat for 4 days while it blew snowed and was generally bad weather.
the picture below at points i could not see the back of the trailers
after the third day i had too refuel as did most of the other trucks as you run the engines 24 hours a day to stop them freezing up, on the third day my truck had sucked snow into the filter and packed up i had oil coming out the exhaust not good, and in the evening i just could not keep it running anymore so i left and went to the camp via the security trucks that ferried us around
The morning after the storm had left us
My first view of the Diavik diamond mine
i left the truck here for RTL and there service team to collect and ferry back to Yellowknife on a trailer, someone would collect the trailers before the ice melted and the road disappeared
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