Bender Outdoor Services

About Bender Outdoor Services

Winter reaches Hiawassee off the water — a north wind combing across Lake Chatuge, then a few hours of snow that clings to the rhododendron and the cabin roofs above the shore. Bender Outdoor Services goes out into it, plowing lake-road drives, clearing decks and stair treads, salting the short steep pitches that drop toward the docks. Snow here is a guest that overstays only in the shade, but it stays long enough to strand a car on a curve. Getting people out to the main road before school is the whole job. On the way back the lake is glass, and the ridges have gone soft and white.