South of La Junta the shortgrass runs out toward canyon country, and a winter storm crossing it announces itself as a gray line on the horizon an hour before it arrives. SMS Snow Removal watches for that line and starts early — plowing drives, lots and approach lanes, shoveling sidewalks, steps and doorways, then treating the ice that forms once the wind scours the surface dry and hard. Snow in this part of the valley is often thin and always determined; it packs, it glazes, and it hides beneath a dusting until somebody's tires find it. Clearing down to the surface rather than just the top layer is what separates a finished job from a half-done one. Then the sky opens back up blue, the way it nearly always does here, and everything is passable again.