South of town Highway 84 runs toward Chromo between fence lines and cattle, and the ranch lanes off it are long, unpaved and entirely at the mercy of a storm. Markham Septic & Excavation puts its iron to that in winter, plowing driveways, lanes and lots around Pagosa Springs and shoving the banks well back from the edges. Heavy equipment earns its keep when the snow comes in wet and deep late in the season, the kind that laughs at a pickup blade. A quarter-mile lane opened end to end is a good morning's work, and it looks like one. Then the next front tips over the mountains and the whole thing starts again.