“Safe” ice

Found this link. Thought it may come in handy.

http://www.crrel.usace.army.mil/ierd/ice_safety/safety.html

I have seen this chart a few times and I dont like it much.. it more or less claims its safe to pull a 20′ wheeleed house behind a heavy duty truck on 9″ of ice.

Keep in mind this chart is for a load on perfect ice in ideal weather conditions, and does not account for ice variations, a moving load on top of the ice, etc. A bunch of new variables come into play with a moving load, pressure cracks, weight already on the ice within a certain perimeter around your created weight.. ice houses, vehicles, snow wieghs up quick.

I believe there is a recommended ice chart on the DNR site also that is a little more thought out with ice condition variables. Ice is strong and it will hold a lot of weight.. but I would hate for some to assume all is well because there is X amount of ice.

Last week on Owasso in the north metro I found the ice to be the same thickness across much of the lake, but the clear ice ranged from 80% of the overall thickness to only 10% of the overall in other spots, and then only half the ice thickness once I got 20′ away from where we parked the ATV and gear with next to NO clear ice… that was a little scary, and a person would have been wet if it was a vehicle. We seen a vehicle pull out a wheeled house in the access bay shortly before that.