Off-roading is not without its perils, so it’s important to start any excursion with a safety checklist. Item one: Make sure the field you’ve chosen to test the four-wheel-drive system in your new Chevrolet Silverado is in fact a field, and not a frozen pond. Skip that step and you’re in for a long, cold winter, like this icy Icarus in southern Illinois.
As St. Louis-area news station Fox 2 reports, the owner of the lifted 2018 Chevy Silverado Z71 and a friend were out for a pre-dawn drive on New Year’s Day when they came upon what looked like a wintry field on Chouteau Island, just north of St. Louis on the Mississippi River. The pair decided to test their truck’s mettle, and almost made it to the center of the clearing…before they realized they’d driven onto the swampy, frozen remains of a seasonal lake.
They tried to turn around, but the thin layer of ice supporting the truck’s front axle gave way, sinking it into the muck below. That mud has since frozen the truck in place.
Later that day, the owner of the truck rented a backhoe to try and pull the Silverado out, but the backhoe also broke through the ice, and is even more entombed in frozen mud as of last report.
The property is owned by a group called the Chain of Rocks Recreation Corporation, and a representative told Fox 2 that the lake that forms there in the spring is about six to seven feet deep and used for water-skiing practice. The vehicles are frozen fast right now amid a record cold snap, but it will be just as tricky to pull them out as the mud thaws and the lake begins to fill when temperatures rise.
Adding insult to injury: The men are reportedly also facing trespassing citations, and it’s likely the truck will be impounded for illegal four-wheeling even if it does make it out in one piece.