For most of us that get snow in the winter, it is more of an annoyance than a crippling load of white doom. Parking lots get plowed, roads get plowed and salted, and then life goes on like normal. What about places that get such volumes of snow that normal strategy just isn’t going to cut it. We’re talking places like Yellowstone National Park. In this video we get a window into the work of Yellowstone snow plowing crews as they work to open roads after big snow. The equipment is cool, the guys have a little swagger to them, but the most impressive thing is seeing two Caterpillar bulldozers working to straight up drag a road grader with a V-plow on the front of it through snow so deep that the ‘dozers driver over top of it!
The snow blower trucks are also pretty radical with huge saw tooth bladed wheels that break up the snow before it is launched halfway to space and away from the road. The giant V and wing plow trucks are also fun to see at work, shoving the white hell aside like a bouncer clearing the door at a bar.
These guys do a job that is arduous and long. Anyone who does snow work puts in ungodly hours when a big storm comes. The last one we had up here, some friends went 42 hours straight either behind the wheel or running equipment. Even Superman would go crosseyed at that point.
Ever drive through Yellowstone in the spring when the snowbanks are high and the roads are cleared? Thank these guys. They are the ones who quite literally make it possible.
May 1975 – we had to wait a day to get in the east entrance to Yellowstone
due to snow slides
They convoyed us in 15-20 cars at a time
The uphill side of the road was a vertical wall of snow taller then the
pick w/camper in the bed that we were in ..