Photos: Trucks keep breaking through the ice at Big Lake

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A pickup is partly submerged in Big Lake last week (mid-Feb. 2016) after the driver stayed on a channel between Mud and Flat lakes instead of sticking with an established ice road. Locals say the truck is one of four to break through the ice since early January.

WASILLA -- Several pickups have broken through the ice of Big Lake since early January, as many as three in the past week alone.

Climate change might seem the likely scapegoat. But weather isn't the primary reason, locals say. Instead, the problem is out-of-towners unfamiliar with the area and straying from to the lake's established ice roads.

The most prominent pickup through the ice was a big blue truck with a topper that created a nose-down obstacle at the start of Sunday's Iron Dog snowmachine race restart.

Read more: Ice road truck woes: off-course pickups fall victim to Big Lake