High winter temperatures due to El Niño have greatly shortened the year's ice road season and left the routes in even worse shape than normal.
While hauling construction supplies to Pikangikum, Darrell learns that a stretch of the route has been closed due to high temperatures and pulls over to wait until it reopens.
The next morning, he estimates that his truck's weight is very close to the safety limit and risks the crossing; a passing pickup near the shore throws a scare into him, but he makes it off the ice and completes the run.
Lisa hurries from Garden Hill toward Winnipeg with a loader, but engine trouble forces her to pull over and shut off her truck so she can check the fluid levels.
Darrell and Lisa take on their longest haul to date, driving over 1,000 miles along a trail nicknamed "The Death Road" to deliver heating supplies to Fort Chipewyan, Alberta.
Lisa's engine begins to leak oil into its coolant system; unable to fix it on the spot, she and Darrell push on in the hope that they can finish the run before the truck becomes undrivable.
News of a truck having broken through one of the road's ice crossings sets Steph's nerves on edge, but she and Todd avoid the damaged area and reach land safely.
The crossing on the road to Shamattawa is reopened after a night's wait, and Todd and Steph get moving in order to reduce their chance of being caught by another shutdown.
Alex picks up an oversized fuel tank needed in Norway House that night, but the road's poor condition threatens to shake it off his trailer.
The final hurdle is an ice crossing that shows signs of beginning to thaw, and he proceeds with great caution, standing on the steps of his cab as he notices open water flows on the surface.
Her truck is close to the maximum weight allowed on the ice crossing, whose length and covering of fresh snow cause her great alarm as she starts across.
Risking a drive through a stretch of melted, boggy terrain, he reaches Brochet that same evening, drops off the last load, and hurries to leave town before the weather changes.
After spending a night stuck on the road to Big Trout Lake, Todd ties down the broken ends of his spring with a tow strap and is able to start moving again.
The rough road puts severe stress on his repair job and the truck's one intact spring; once he delivers his load, the return trip proves equally hazardous.
That night, he hits a rock that breaks his Jerry-rigged leaf spring completely and punches a hole in his radiator, leaving him with no choice but to call Polar and have the truck towed back to Winnipeg.
A steep, muddy hill forces Mark to use the loader he has brought along to push them to the top; Todd, the last to go, has the hardest time of them all since his load is the heaviest.
Later they come to a lake crossing that proves to be dangerously thin, but all four drivers decide to push on, with Mark taking the loader off Darrell's trailer and driving it himself to redistribute the weight.