Some mornings the peaks above the Wood River Valley go pink with the first light while Bellevue itself still sits under a lid of cold, still air pooled down on the valley floor — an inversion that can hold the town ten degrees colder than the ridgeline a thousand feet above it. Altitude Services works right through that flipped cold, clearing driveways and lots while frost sits heavy and unmoving on every parked car and fence rail in town. The Big Wood River runs low and slow past the edge of Bellevue in winter, more often skinned with ice than not, and the cold air that gathers along its bottomland is usually the last to burn off even once the sun has cleared the Boulder Mountains to the east. That alpenglow takes its time working down off the peaks toward Main Street, and the crew is usually most of the way through its route before the light ever reaches town, working the coldest hours instead of waiting on the valley to warm. It's a particular kind of winter morning, this valley holding its cold close while the mountains around it catch the light first.