A short drive out from the public access on a newly frozen Upper South Long Lake resulted in a sunken pickup truck and a careless driving ticket.
The Crow Wing County Sheriff's Office received a report of a truck through the ice at 2:55 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 25, near the 9700 block of County Highway 23. A deputy responded to the incident and learned the truck-which broke through at a depth of about 2.5 feet-was pulled from the lake by someone else on scene. The sheriff's office reported it did not appear the driver was intending to fish on the lake, and his reason for driving onto the ice was unclear.
Conservation officers from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources arrived and issued a citation to the driver for careless driving.
Following the incident, the sheriff's deputy provided the driver a courtesy ride home because his clothing was wet. The driver was not identified by the sheriff's office, and a call to the DNR was not returned Monday.
General ice thickness guidelines from the DNR state ice should be 8-12 inches thick to handle the weight of a car a small pickup truck and 12-15 inches thick for a medium-sized truck. The ice thickness on Upper South Long was unavailable, although last week Sheriff Todd Dahl issued a warning to stay off area lakes, citing weather conditions unfavorable to ice production.
