How Many Months Out Of The Year Do Ice Road Truckers Stay On The Road?
To this day, several years after the final episode aired, "Ice Road Truckers" maintains a loyal fanbase. Lisa Kelly still regularly gets fan mail, and Alex Debogorski is still a regular on the trade show circuit. Both have also maintained their career in trucking well after the show's final episodes, along with several others who appeared during its 11 seasons.
This might seem surprising. Many reality stars, from "Top Chef" champion Kristen Kish to Zach Rance of "Big Brother," find their lives changed forever after the cameras stop running (via Vulture). Some manage to parlay their time on the show into other show business careers. And while Lisa Kelly has claimed she is open to the show's return, she hasn't exactly been eager to push for a new and renewed "Ice Road Truckers."
"Deadliest Roads" spin-off show notwithstanding, Debogorski and Kelly haven't opted for that route, even as they've maintained admirers from across the world. So what is it that has them maintaining their taxing, cold, wintry, blue collar jobs?
Three months is a normal season for the Ice Road Truckers
During a short 2012 profile on "Ice Road Truckers" star Hugh "Polar Bear" Rowland, Hollywood Soapbox mentioned that the average season length for winter long haul trucking is around three months. During the rest of the year, the ice is simply too thin to hold the hundreds of tons of equipment, trailer, and truck. Like most of the other truckers featured on "Ice Road Truckers," Rowland finds other means of employment during the long off-season, in his case running a construction company.
That said, even with such a short season, they make what for many of them comes to a full year's pay during those short three months. According to AltDriver.com, they can make upwards of $100,000 a season. And even those who don't will likely be able to make that by combining the incomes of their trucking with their off-season jobs, whatever they may be.
None of this is to say that driving a truck across solid ice is a breeze. Far from it. Any fan of "Ice Road Truckers" will be familiar the high level of danger faced by drivers during the height of the season. Much like Discovery's "Deadliest Catch," the extremely dangerous conditions make solid pay an absolute necessity for the drivers of "Ice Road Truckers."