What would a pro do to pull this skid out of the ice? The neighbors sunk it about 10 days ago and are working on it today. DIY operators. I swore off helping because of liability. I imagine that my EX100 could pick the rear end, if the ice is safe enough. So I'm tempted to be a good neighbor. But I'm not insured for this job.
I think if you try picking it from on the ice you will end up in the lake with it. Someone tried that here and ended up with 3 machines sunk. Depends how far out it is. If close to shore a good size tow truck will pull it if you can cut the ice and free it. Other option is a steel frame on the ice to act as a fulcrum point while winching.
How far out from known solid ground? If you can source enough cable and a couple snatch blocks you can use your machine to winch it out.
Did anyone think to equip it with a rat tail before starting the adventure ? Or is some one going swimming to do the hooking up ?
DIY got it there and DIY can get it out. YMMV.
Pro move would have had a wrecker coming the moment it hit the water Sorting other options while waiting Leaving it freeze in for 10 days wouldn't evoke any neighborly feelings for me
If water got into the engine it might be scrap. If you're thinking of pulling it out because it's a possible replacement for your snowblower, I'd do a thorough inspection including taking things apart. The chain cases could be full of water as could the hyd. and fuel tanks. It should have been pulled out ASAP not left half submerged for 10 days.
If they're gonna leave it ten days, they should have tarped it and covered it with snow so it doesn't freeze any worse. Set up enough chains, cables, snatch blocks to trees or anchors and pull it out.
Don't touch that, good chance it's coming out in pieces
If the ice around it was broken it should come out in 1 piece but how much damage has been done sitting half submerged for over 10 days???
Looks like rock hard frozen mud
attach cables to area of loader arm pivots, it's less than 1/3 covered, just pull the winch up tight and let it set for a bit like 30 minutes under tension then add a little more tension the ice mud will fracture. but let someone with correct equipment go after it.
Looks like a lake or big pond in the background. It's better if it's mostly water it's stuck in. The ice all around it can be broken up. If it was frozen in soupy mud would probably have to thaw everything out before it could be extracted. That's what I had to do when my track loader broke through the frozen crust on some soupy loam. Mud was packed in the tracks and froze. Took all a D5H could pull to get it out. Once out put a tarp over it and ran a torpedo heater for about 9 hours along with a Tiger torch around the sprockets trying to thaw it out so it would move on its own.
It would have been a good idea to put some cables on it right away to keep it from sinking further.
Well, another day spent with no success on their part. Yep, the first day stuck would have been a fairly easy extraction and the day to spend a few dollars for help. What happened was the first day they had a pickup with a snow plow who fell through but got out. Then the skidsteer with blower was brought in and got into the overflow and was stuck. A pickup tried to pull him out and got stuck in the weak ice. Another pickup was brought in and managed to get both pickups out, but they left the machine with it's ass in the mucky water where it kept sinking. Then temps dropped to -20⁰ for several days here and is warmer now, maybe 15⁰ which helps for safe travels on the lake. I couldn't say what they are doing all day but they have run chainsaws and overflow came back into around the skidsteer. I'm not offering... Too much risk. @Welder Dave I guess that you didn't let your track loader sit in the water for long!
Mine wasn't in water thankfully just really wet loam. It was only sunk to the belly pan but it had to stay there for a few days until I could get a Cat over to pull it out. It got pretty cold after it got stuck and the tracks were packed with frozen wet loam. It had to be dragged out but thankfully I could lift up the back with the backhoe. Otherwise probably would have had to get a bigger machine than a D5M to pull it out. Took a long time to thaw it out so the tracks would turn. It was good that I could pick up each side off the ground to try and get the tracks moving.
This looks like time to call on the King of Obsolete!!
i ran a tow company last year in palmer alaska, had a guy call me to get his out of a lake also in wasilla, so theres been more them one in lakes in alaska so far this season
My thoughts EXACTLY. Why in the **** did they wait ten days for it to freeze in good and solid ?? Gonna need 50k+ of pull and an excavator to dig around it to get it out now.....
The FIRST thing they need to do is get that stupid snowblower off the front of it, it sure as hell isn't coming out with that thing complicating the process.....
good thing he chained up them back tires.
Damn I want a pair if they have enough traction to dig through ice. After hearing the story about 2 trucks breaking through and getting stuck, why the heck would they take a skid steer out there? The driver is really lucky the front of the machine stayed up and he could get out. A skid steer with a door on front and a blower stuck on an angle like that would be kind of a beatch to get out of, especially when it's sinking and you're panicking. I'd guess the driver needed a change of underwear. He's extremely lucky.
Say the ice is a foot thick. Chip 6 inches away from it all around the machine. wait a couple days and chip another layer off, assuming the frost level has gone deeper under the machine? after a few rounds you have exposed the machine... Not sure what "overflow" mentioned above is. Is this where one lake has an outlet to another lake so the water is flowing underneath the whole area?
lol idiots doing idiot things
Its a Volvo.......push it in further until you can't see it no more
Well, my 2cents, I can’t resist. It looks like a rocky bottom and the front wheels and the blower are on the beach- only the back end is actually in the lake. Basically have to chop the ice around it and break it loose. If 2 pickups went through then the ice is probably only about 3 or 4” thick but at the edge it will be froze down to and around the rocks which complicates things. Probably a good idea to remove the blower so it doesn’t get damaged. Enough brute force will break it loose after chopping and chiseling around it. A heater(herman nelson) blowing on the front end for a day or two will help to warm the front enough to make it easier to break loose especially if its tarped in
Or it could be muddy instead of rocky, then the edge is open under the snow, and the ice in the middle of the lake is thicker. Just can't tell much from a picture.
Cat with winch and some explosives .
Maybe go setup a GoPro and record the fiasco. May get lots of hits on YouTube. I agree with should have gotten it out asap (even costing some $) vs letting it set there for days. Maybe a big excavator or crane could lift it, if the ice was broken up. But not sure how close to solid ground. Here I am guessing EPA or Dept of ecology would be all over them, already.
Maybe rig a good pull on it with block purchase from a solid anchor point like another excavator dug in a bit on solid ground. Tension it up then cover it with insulated tarps and run a couple of frost fighters into it might take a couple of days of steady heating but id bet when its warmed up it will pull out ok. Probably not a hard pull there once its melted out.
I like it Doug. Park the Cat on the shore, set charges in the Volvo's cab and watch the fireworks sitting in the Cat on the shore.
Cat with a cab and working heater! Afterword, it will push down out of sight easier, per @Vetech63
If someone had a telehandler you could fork off the blower. Then break out the ice around the machine, lift and pull with the tele to get it out. What a mess.
You do know that one is powered by a 3-53, shame on you and the ones who hit the like button.
With all that's going on around---worrying about a volvo skid steer stuck in AK, who cares, there's more where that one came from.
For sale Volvo Skidsteer. Was running when parked. I know longer use it. Bring trailer. Snowblower attachment not included.
Ideas. A cable from a good point to the machine, to some point on land, attach some sort of floats to it. Wait till the ice thaws. Find someone with a jet engine equipped with an after burner to melt the ice. A huge steam cleaner. A bunch of chain saws with carbide chains, in case you hit rock or ? A D8 size or larger winch cat will also be needed, tow trucks will just slide. Ice is like concrete.
A classmates Dad almost died going through the ice in a skid steer. Was plowing the river for the snowmobile ice drags and hit a weak spot. This was maybe 1995 or so. Machine didn't have a door. River was only about 25ft deep in that spot, was able to get out and swim to the hole.
I was clearing snow on a big lake for the Numb Bum 24 hour M/C ice race. The snow was fairly deep. At one point I pushed snow up on shore and right at the edge it wasn't frozen and my front wheels dropped in. I picked the front up with the bucket and pushed/drove backwards. It's was rather strange because the ice on the lake was over 16" thick. It was at a tree line and I think the snow insulated the water from freezing where it met the shore. A little bit scary at first.
That would be scary!
that snow insulation is absolutely a thing, Dave. If the river water is well above freezing, it excavates the ice from below when it gets blanketed. Playing on the ice is a dangerous game, I never need worry because I am allergic to that much cold.
I get people wanting me to deliver firewood on "ice roads" often. Nope, not doing it. Great your 4,000lb car has no trouble. How about a 20,000lb truck?
I'd wear out a cordless drill and still not feel safe about that. On the wind blown lakes it is one thing, the snow takes care of itself and the ice becomes consistent. Rivers are out to kill you. My buddy married an Inuit lady, and she has lost so many family and friends below the ice on snow machines, she could not watch him swim in a pool in Hawaii. It was a real thing.
My first trip on the ice had some excitment for myself and the other crane operator as we drove the 80 ton American out on the Muskwa River .It was about 1/2 mile wide 15 to 25 feet of water running under us. as we got to the middle of the ice bridge there was a huge crack.sounded like cannon fire The ice bridge guys were out and and they just had a laugh ,stress relief in the ice they called it.
I see you were driving with both the outriggers out, and the cab door open, I would have done the same. But I would have had one foot outside said cab, ready to bail.
The bridge was 5 ft thick and tested,we were just new to that
One foot, one arm, and half an ass if where me lol
At one of the ice races about 8 guys on sleds were parked watching. Somebody said there must have been a stream flowing under the ice because there was a small puddle of water on the track. The puddle kept getting bigger and bigger to where it was about 25ft. wide with big big rut worn in the ice since it was after a corner. Most riders tried to avoid the rut and either wheelied through the water or slowed down and took extra care. One poor rider fell in the wet section. He had to be pretty frozen after that. The good thing is it was a team race so he could make it back to the pits and change riding gear and warm up. A team mate could take over. There was 1 guy that ran the 24 hour race by himself. At one of the 24 hour races they wouldn't let him register. They said he was too late to sign in. He was about 20 minutes late after having drove a long distance to get there, 4 or 5 hours I recall. The race hadn't started yet. It was really disgraceful in my opinion. He bought a new bike. He wanted to buy it from a certain dealer but that dealer didn't have one in stock and didn't know how long it would take to get one. He wanted the bike specifically before the 24 hour race so ended up buying from another dealer who had one in stock. One of the people doing sign in was one of the owners of the dealer that he wanted to buy from but couldn't get a bike soon enough. Disgusting he couldn't sign in! He was one guy and just wanted to do the race by himself. Wouldn't have affected anything. I'm sure if the woman that was part owner of the dealership wasn't doing sign in, he would have been signed up no problem. I lost a lot of respect for her and the rest of people that wouldn't let him sign in. Just shameful.
We've had a very mild winter so far. About a week ago a mom, dad and their son fell through the ice in a side by side and they all perished. Really sad. I remember last year a dog fell through the ice running out on a river. That's pretty sad too especially considering the river was next to a city dog park and there were no fences or signs warning of thin ice. I think city needs to take some (maybe a lot of) responsibility in this kind of tragedy.
All in all it's pretty hilarious, and I think in this case no one got hurt. Could have been a b**** though. Maybe it was for them as it took them 12 days. Someone wondered what overflow is and that's where the weight of the snow pushes the ice down and water comes up into the snow, at least that's my description. Even though last week we had very cold temperatures and it's still pretty chilly we can still get overflow... The crew was using chainsaws and pulling blocks of ice out from around the machine last week but even at -20°, the water was still flowing in and around the skid steer. The place where it went through was overflow and the marshy area keeps things from freezing as deeply. That's sort of how muskeg works... it doesn't freeze as deep generally. What we were calling land, where the snow blower was on, was muskeg, and having heavy equipment on that would be rather risky since, as I just said, it might not have been deeply frozen and you would risk another machine getting buried. They did finally take the blower off and then there was a lot of activity yesterday, and I was gone so I didn't have the pleasure of going over to add an episode to my YouTube channel. Somehow, the extricated it without heavy equipment. There's a tree / dead man in the water that maybe they snatched off of at an angle. Maybe they learned a lesson, I don't know. There are tried and true ways of building an ice Road. How they do it on the North Slope is pretty interesting. But building an ice road requires trained personnel and the right equipment. FN up doesn't have the same requirements.
I think the general rule is to drill a hole to confirm the ice thickness before anything goes on it. Water flow under the ice could be unpredictable though.