The last light of a winter afternoon in Colorado Springs turns Pikes Peak a slow rose color, and along the Cottonwood Creek trail the packed snow picks up the very same tint for a few minutes. Empyre Outdoor Living LLC is often still working then, plowing drives and clearing walks along the Woodmen corridor and across the north side after a storm that quit around noon. Patios, entry steps and the walkways around them get shoveled by hand so those spaces stay usable in February instead of being written off until April. Ice treatment goes down wherever a walk turns north and the sun stops being any help at all. Winter does not have to mean the outside of a house closes for the season.