Waterfalls Northwest works the low country around Athol where small creeks thread down through the timber toward Lake Pend Oreille, running open and dark even on mornings cold enough to freeze every ditch and culvert crossing solid. The crew clears the driveways and access roads that cross those drainages, watching for the low spots where meltwater refreezes overnight into glare ice long after the rest of the road has gone to packed snow instead. Spirit Lake's own little valley sits just to the west, holding its own cold pocket of air some mornings while Athol itself catches a bit more sun by midday, and the crew reads that difference into how early they start each route. Bare cottonwood and alder line the wettest stretches of ground, black against the white, marking exactly where the crew knows to slow down and check the surface before running a blade through. Long before those creeks run loud again with spring melt, the driveways above them will have spent a whole winter kept open, one careful pass at a time.