French Creek Tree Fellers

About French Creek Tree Fellers

French Creek runs right past Custer on its way into Custer State Park, cutting a narrow valley lined with ponderosa pine that holds snow long after it has melted off the open grass parks nearby. French Creek Tree Fellers plows the driveways tucked into that timber, where a foot of snow in the valley bottom can mean drifts twice as deep pressed up against a stand of pine. The crew works switchback driveways and long gravel approaches that climb away from the creek toward cabins set back in the trees. Snow here falls heavier and holds longer than it does out on the surrounding prairie, so a single plow route can take most of a day among the ridges. Cleared, a driveway through that timber looks like a pale seam cut into dark green, running back into the trees until it disappears around the first bend.