Herculean Plowing

About Herculean Plowing

Valley snow can pile deep and heavy around Knik by midwinter, banked by wind off Knik Arm into drifts that bury fence lines and swallow the markers along back roads, and Herculean Plowing runs the equipment built for exactly that kind of load. Some of the driveways out this way haven't seen a blade since the last storm, so a first pass can mean cutting through waist-high snow just to find where the gravel starts, birch and spruce standing close on either side like fence posts of their own. The Knik River bottomland nearby holds cold air in pockets that can sit ten degrees colder than the road just above it, and a plow route through here learns to expect that swing from one dip to the next. Clearing a homestead property back to bare ground, snow banked high enough along the drive to block the wind for the rest of the winter, is its own kind of quiet math. By the time a truck's fresh tracks lead back out to Knik-Goose Bay Road, another stretch of the valley is open again.