Ice Road

With just three weeks to go, everyone is pushing it to the limit to get the freight to Deadhorse before the season ends. Lisa rushes to Carlile to pick up her next load. She's convoying north with Jack Jesse. On the road, he shows her how to avoid spinning out by shifting gears. Hugh and Phil have been doing short turns all week to get storm-delayed freight from Coldfoot to Deadhorse. On today's trip, Hugh discovers that he and Alex are not the only fierce competitors on the ice road. Phil is battling with his nemesis at Carlile, Drew–-they get into a heated debate on the CB about who has the most trips this month. Since Hugh's logs are same as Phil's, he thinks they will win this one. Tim and George are delayed again in Fairbanks because George's truck is in the shop. But when they finally get on the road, it's Tim's truck that develops a fatal electrical problem. The rookie is severely disappointed and has to turn back again while George carries on north by himself.

With only two weeks left of the winter season, the race is on to deliver the remaining loads before the ice roads melt away. But this late in the game, truckers are besieged by mechanical breakdowns and a volcanic eruption in Southern Alaska has put unexpected pressure on this remote road. The volcanic eruption has also shutdown Alaska's fuel refineries, leaving Deadhorse extremely short on fuel. Without diesel, the generators that supply power and heat are likely to run dry. The impending crisis prompts Carlile Trucking to give the first load of diesel reserves to their ace trucker, Jack. He races up the ice with the flammable load, only to be put to the test when an oncoming truck heads straight for him on a hairpin corner. Up in Deadhorse, rookie Lisa assists a stranded airline passenger with a ride south only to be left high and dry herself with a major breakdown–in negative thirty. Stranded with no heat, their only hope is rescue.

It's three weeks into the winter season in Northern Alaska, and Carlile Transportation has only moved 500 of the 2,000 loads it needs to transport to the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. The clock is ticking and an arctic storm is brewing. Hugh and Alex are joined by safety instructors as they embark on their frisky first trip to Prudhoe Bay. In the dead of night, on a hill so slick they call it "oil spill," Jack Jesse has to make a moral decision between helping a stranded passenger vehicle whose passengers could freeze to death or potentially losing his load in the effort to save them. Lisa Kelly requests her first ever "heavy haul"–a load that's anything oversized or overweight–and when she gets her wish, she may regret it. Tim Freeman makes his second attempt to navigate the ice road, but this time, the rookie runs smack into a horrible storm.

The race is on to make it to Prudhoe before a wicked storm turns fierce. After riding out the previous night's storm in Coldfoot, Tim and George decide to push on, despite the dire forecast. Twenty-five miles from Deadhorse, they run straight into the storm and are forced to slam through huge snowdrifts to make it to safety. Lisa also braves the weather so she can see her husband in Prudhoe Bay, but gets stopped at Coldfoot because the road north is closed. Hugh departs Prudhoe heading south with his convoy partner Phil. Despite a cloud of ice fog, they make it through the worst of the storm and celebrate at the top of Atigun Pass by barbequing in the snow and cooking up a feast of caribou. Several hours behind Hugh, veteran driver but newcomer to the roads of Northern Alaska, Alex is also heading south with veteran driver Jack. Jack's displeasure with the "rookie's" mistakes forces Alex to make the trip to Coldfoot alone.

The Ice Road takes no prisoners when the truckers push their limits. Ray spins out into oncoming big rigs. Jack battles a 200 ton monster haul to Prudhoe. Alex risks a bust by the DOT. Lisa races to raise cash to buy back her horse. Greg drives into mega mechanical problems.

The Ice Road takes no prisoners when the truckers push their limits. Ray spins out into oncoming big rigs. Jack battles a 200 ton monster haul to Prudhoe. Alex risks a bust by the DOT. Lisa races to raise cash to buy back her horse. Greg drives into mega mechanical problems.

Two truckers driving across frozen Alaskan rivers to deliver equipment to a remote diamond mine, encounter a long-dormant prehistoric creature on the frozen ice.

There's only two weeks left to pull in the big bucks and get all the loads to the oil fields. Hugh's impatience with his trainer driver Phil's slow pace nearly causes him to spin out on one of the steep slopes of the Atigun Pass–a place where the slightest misstep can send a truck over the cliff. In Fairbanks, Lisa, who has a reputation for fast driving, decides to convoy on her next load with veteran George Spears and rookie Tim Freeman, who refer to themselves as "Slow and Slower." On the road, Lisa spins out, forcing her to back down a hill–while traffic in both directions comes to a complete standstill. Alex delivers a load to Deadhorse, equaling Hugh Rowland's load count. Determined to take the lead, Alex immediately takes a back haul assignment, but the load isn't strapped securely and threatens to fall off.

A deadly combination of unpredictable weather on the North Slope has made Atigun Pass more dangerous than ever. Record snowfall mixed with now warmer temperatures has turned this wicked pass into a devil's slide–slippery than ever and at all time high for avalanche risk. Heavy-hauling ace Jack Jesse is first out of the gate with one of the most critical loads of the season–two 46,000-pound tanks worth $300,000. These loads will be a challenge. Jack calls on friend and fellow heavy-haul expert Carey Hall to help out. But disaster strikes when one of the giant tankers slips off the forklift and slams into the ground. Will their assignment be over before it's even begun? After a chance meeting in Coldfoot, Alex and Hugh compare load counts. Hugh is one load ahead and Alex is eager to catch up to him. He is the first out of the gates for Deadhorse, but unexpectedly runs into trouble on Atigun Pass when another trucker tries to pass him.

Canada is today the world’s third producer of diamonds both in value and quantity. These are not just any diamonds, they are ice diamonds or «clean» diamonds in opposition with Africa’s «blood» diamonds that finance war, weapons and use child labor. Clean diamonds are widely appreciated on the international market for their purity as well as their ethics. Extracting these rocks is no easy feat. By minus 50 degrees celsius and polar winds, thousands of men work in giant open-air mines of 1,5 km diameter.