South of Superior the ground drops toward the Republican River, and the cottonwood stands along its bluffs are where Crowl Tree Service Inc spends most of its working year, clearing deadfall and shaping storm-damaged limbs. Winter narrows that same attention to the driveways and access roads leading down toward the river bottom properties, where snow drifts deep in the lee of the bluffs and a plow blade earns its keep against banks that can run higher than a truck's hood. The crew's trucks are built for rough ground—clearing brush, hauling timber—so a heavy Nuckolls County snowfall is just a different kind of obstacle to push through rather than around. Ice tends to sheet the low spots near the river crossing before it touches higher ground, so that's usually the first stop of a route that works back uphill toward town. By the time the crew turns back toward town, the river-bottom lanes sit open again, cut clean through banks that would otherwise strand a resident until a thaw.