Collins Backhoe & Water

About Collins Backhoe & Water

Kemmerer sits low in the Hams Fork valley, and on a clear winter night the cold sinks right down over the old downtown blocks around Triangle Park before the sun has any real chance to reach them the next morning. Collins Backhoe & Water runs its loader through those narrow coal-camp streets first, then out onto the benches above town where the wind has usually already done half the drifting. The valley holds its cold long enough some winters that a lot cleared at six can be sheeted with black ice again by nine, so timing the pass matters as much as making it. Getting a loader down a Hams Fork side street before the town wakes, snow pushed back clean against the old brick instead of choking the walk in front of it, is the routine this end of Kemmerer runs on all winter.