Friday 18 February, 8:00pm on Five
The thrilling documentary about the truckers who brave Alaska’s most fearsome and treacherous roads continues its fourth series. In this episode, Jack finds himself on thin ice during an urgent fuel delivery, Lisa faces her biggest challenge yet as she handles her first oversized load, and veteran drivers Alex and Hugh continue their long-standing rivalry. In Fairbanks, Jack is given an urgent delivery of fuel to take to the isolated village of Nuiqsut. The settlement, which is 570 miles to the north of the depot, is located across a long stretch of frozen river. As the village is running low on the diesel fuel needed to run its generators, a speedy delivery is vital. However, Jack first has to conquer some steep mountain passes. This usually tricky task is made all the more difficult by the diesel fluid moving around in the lorry’s containers. This ‘slosh effect’ can become so violent that trucks can tip over and be thrown off the road. “The liquid load acts like it’s alive,” Jack explains. Jack’s tyres soon begin to spin dangerously close to the edge of the mountain road. It is only some expert handling of his vehicle that stops Jack from crashing over the barrier. “I ran over the ledge!” Jack says. “We just made that one,” he adds, relieved. However, Jack’s troubles begin in earnest when he takes the heavy load onto the frozen river. “It’s a weird sensation, being on the ice – it makes me nervous,” he confesses. Jack’s uneasiness is compounded when he realises that a storm is closing in around him, meaning that he could effectively be trapped out on the ice. Can he arrive at his destination safely? Meanwhile, Lisa is unexpectedly called to go and see her boss. Luckily for her, it is good news – she has been entrusted with driving an oversized load to Prudhoe. As she is carrying a bulk which is 45ft long and 16ft high, there is little margin for error, especially when driving through the streets of the populated Fairbanks. “I always get an adrenaline rush,” Lisa says. As she hits the highway the journey is going well, but Lisa soon hears news of freezing fog ahead. “We’re gonna get swallowed up,” Lisa warns. As the fog descends, visibility is reduced to next to nothing. “It’s hard to know what to focus on when you can’t see it,” Lisa says. Will she be able to drive through the rough weather to prove her trucking mettle once and for all?