I think they really did ham it up a bit. Much of the driving there is on the river with portages to shorten the route. When that B train gets stuck, it shows a lousy bit of driving as you wouldn’t just sit there and spin, you would either back out of it or would have slid back down the hill anyway. When that happens you are generally in a mess by the time you stop and need to be towed.
Sometimes you can sit for hours waiting for someone to come along which is why you run convoy most of the time.
I don’t know about the weights in the NWT, but we were running up to 88000 lbs gross. 40 odd tonnes metric, on 5 axles, too.
We use the older trucks on the winter roads, but the one I took up last year was a 2004 and I think I will be getting the same one this year. Ours are fully serviced just prior to going north, and there is nothing the company won’t provide, truckwise, to ensure the safety of all. They also strip the trucks down a little. They remove the bumpers and rear mudguards so we can chain up more easily.
We go up with 80000lb towstraps, 10 chains, 2 sets of snowchains, lots of oil, coolant, diesel antigel, brake deicer and other things. We all have the CBs.
The danger is more in the temperatures than anything else. When you are the first on a lake and the cracking starts it is really loud and somewhat disconcerting. When the crack is running away from you and you don’t know how big it’s going to get, that can be a little intense, too. Getting stuck is all part of it, too.
Yet it is odd how it alters your viewpoint. Last week, 2 of us were heading from Denver to a little place in Utah called Bonanza. I was following a Canadian driver and he was altogether too cautious. When we came to a road marked up with the name of the town, he wouldn’t take it because it was a small road not even on our maps. I persuaded him to go that way and he was worried the whole time about getting stuck. I learned on the winter roads to treat getting stuck as an amusing diversion. It knocked 70 miles off the route and was no problem at all.
They are starting any day now. I have been told I am on them this year, too. Got the cameras ready.
But since you only been married a few months might be a bit soon to be trading her in for a job on ice 