This picture brings back all sorts of memories. I was picking up these sheep hunters and the weather was less than ideal. I parked the Cub on the flattest portion of ice because I was surprised to find that the ice was very slippery. You may be thinking “Hey dumbhead, ‘slippery’ is the nature of ice!” Well this is not entirely true with glaciers. Glaciers are often not slippery because of all the small rock shards that melt tiny indents into the surface leaving a very grippy textured surface. Two things can cause the ice to become unreasonably slick … cold temperatures and rain. We had both.
As I offloaded the cub it started to slide sideways down the glacier causing me to go through all sorts of odd contortions in an attempt to be drug down the glacier with it. It’s funny how motivated I was to join this loosing battle. I dropped the backpack I was carrying and grabbed the wing strut and felt even more helpless. The Cub did not slide far but I hovered around it pretending I could make some difference. I was afraid to touch it for fear of dislodging it a second time. I found it difficult to exit this scenario whilst standing alongside the airplane, so I eventually crawled in. I only did this after I had one person holding each wing and one on the tail section (thankfully I had 3 people on the ground). With their help I got the Cub pointed in the right direction again, and then poured the cobbs to it. Directional control is very important when bounding down a glacier because the slightest deviation in track is difficult to correct. The wind is generally blowing down glacier which greatly diminishes rudder effectiveness during acceleration and the consequences of getting sideways are ….
So anyways, be really careful if it’s raining and/or cold and you are landing on a steep ice field.