BIG COTTONWOOD CANYON — As the weather quickly warms up and more people head into the mountains, the Utah Department of Transportation is digging in to clear the roads over Utah's high mountain passes.
One of those crews was blowing snow Monday on state Route 190, Big Cottonwood Canyon Road, above the town of Brighton. That road, which leads over to Park City by way of Guardsman Pass, was still packed with deep snow until Monday morning.
"Up here, you're always going to get a couple feet (of snow), no matter what," said Tyler Connor, a UDOT transportation technician and plow driver. He's operating a massive blower that is carving into a snowdrift 8 feet high. Even on a light snow year, he said, it takes a lot of work with heavy machinery to clear the road over Guardsman Pass.
They use the same equipment to plow Big Cottonwood Canyon Road all winter long, but this is a different kind of job.
"It's a lot slower. You've got to be careful," he said, eyeing a sharp drop-off from the road.
They're cutting the first path through snow from the gate near Brighton up to Guardsman Pass, the border with Wasatch County. Connor is operating one of two massive blowers to send the snow flying 30 feet or more from the road.
"It's pretty fun," Connor said. "This year was pretty light, so it's not as big as a normal year, but it's fun operate these things."
If anyone has ever used a snowblower to clear their driveway, it's basically the same process. UDOT is simply tackling a bigger job with bigger tools.
"Like a jumbo-sized home snowblower," said Shawn Wright, another UDOT transportation technician who has plowed this road many times in the spring. "It's always fun. This is what I enjoy doing."
This year, they're making quicker work of it than they would in a year with average snowpack.
"Usually it takes two to three days to clean this up, and we're almost done in eight hours now," said Connor.
But even on a year with shallow snowpack, the area up near Guardsman Pass always gets its share. They carved through several snowdrifts at least 8 feet deep covering the road. They said the snow was twice as deep last year.
"On a normal snow year, the 25 mile an hour sign there … that's usually buried," said Wright, pointing to a speed limit sign at the pass. When they plowed up here last year, it was 5 feet under snow. This year, it's exposed.
"Definitely a low snow year," said Wright, "but at least we still have some pretty good snowpack up here."
The biggest challenge this year: the heat.
"Our machines are used to running in the cold," said Wright. "So, we have to take it a little bit slower so they don't overheat."
They cut one lane from the gate to Guardsman Pass, Monday and plan to widen the lanes and clear the surface to make it ready for public traffic in the next couple of weeks.
"The snow melts off, then we'll fix whatever repairs need to be done on the road, and hopefully get it open by Memorial Day," Wright said.
Plow crews are also clearing the pass over Monte Cristo and the Mirror Lake Highway. UDOT expects to have each of the passes open for traffic by Memorial Day weekend.