Ascend Outdoors

About Ascend Outdoors

Northville sits on ground that keeps rising — the roads out of the valley pitch and bend in a way the rest of the county's flat grid never does, and that matters at four in the morning in January. Ascend Outdoors runs the plow route while the town is still dark, taking the hill drives first because those are the ones that go slick and stay slick. Plowing, shoveling, salting and ice control make up the whole night, and the night is measured by whether a car can back out at six without hesitating. There is a plain pleasure in the last pass: headlights on wet black asphalt, snow banked neat along the edge, nobody yet awake to see it. The route covers Northville, Northville Township and the neighboring towns.