4-9-15

General carry;

And the fixed blade I decided to carry too, just because(came in handy trimming some brush too!)

What turned out to be my most important carry, my insulated leather work gloves, here soaked in FREEZING Ice water from the driveway… Had my hands in that water Once, and only once without the gloves… No Thanks! 😉    And the remote to my sump pump, some will recognie from my carry every spring.. 

And, another EDC that came in real handy, saving the day, the two tow chains that are always in my truck;

Earlier this week, the Plow Truck was sitting in the middle of the lake that was melted out in my driveway, about 6” of water. That then re-froze solid. Then thawed the top 2”, and added another 6” of water from surrounding melt off… Then re froe a crust on top, and had about 3 days of this thaw, overflow, crust the top, overflow etc cycle.   Ugh.

So there it sat with all 4 wheels in 4” deep holes of ice perfectly contoured to the wheels and smooth as Glass… Under water… And with smooth street tread tires… Yeah, had to jerk it out of the holes with the other truck.  I even had the tire chains out and sucked under the tires first.(no way I was going to kneel/lay in that water to actually put them on!!) So slick it just shot the chains right out behind the tires…  

That lake was rather interesting to walk on early yesterday, having about 4” of solid glass smooth clear ice on the bottom, then about 3” of water, then about .75” to 1” of ice, then about 2” to 3 “ of water on top of that…. With a thin .5” to 1” shell of ice on top of that… woth about 1” of water on top…all melting…

Step and it would crack and crinkle, and you’d drop throught the top layer if ice… sometimes you;d just feel and hear the second layer crack, sometimes you’d go straight throulg it… other times there would be a 2 to 3 second delay before you wnt through the second layer.    FUN(NOT!)  

And in some places where the yard slopes off into a hole, the water depth between the bottom ice and the first layer of ice was about 8”. In some places its over a foot.   

Walk far enough in that direction and I could drop through into about 2′ of water.. 

Honestly, as great as the gloves were for not freezing my hands, and as handy as the chains were, and even the big knife being there when I needed it for the brush, THE GREATEST piece of gear I had on me and used all day, was my Korkers Snow Jack winter boots.

With the changeagle outsoles, I put of the set that has built in carbide studs; I could walk around on all that wet glassy smooth SLICK ice, even where it was sloped and un even, and not slide a bit, and never worry about ending up on my butt/back.