Ryza Outdoors

About Ryza Outdoors

A handful of streets on Eagle's north edge dead-end right into the foothills, BLM trailhead signs standing at the pavement's last few feet, and the houses built along those dead ends get a long view back down over the whole valley in exchange for driveways that climb harder than anything closer to the river. Ryza Outdoors works those steep, switchbacking drives, where a plow has to work in short careful passes rather than one straight run, and where a car parked at the wrong angle overnight can mean starting the route over. Snow up against the foothills tends to arrive with more wind behind it than snow down on the valley floor, and a driveway exposed to that wind can drift shut again within an hour of being cleared. Getting a resident's truck safely down off one of these grades on the first icy morning of the year is a different kind of job than plowing a flat cul-de-sac, closer to route-finding than routine. From partway up one of these drives, with the whole white valley spread out below and the foothills rising behind, it's easy to see why people build houses at the very end of the pavement.