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Right now, we're on the cutoff road between Norris and Canyon.
We're coming up to what they call "The Blowdown," up this hill.
And we've got Scott Hape running the grader with the wedge on it.
And we've got Luke Sallee and Dave Wyatt
running our two cats pulling the wedge
to break all the hard snow for us.
My name is Marty Powell, and I'm a heavy equipment operator
with the special projects road crew in Yellowstone park.
This is my 22nd year with the spring plowing...
Snow removal process in Yellowstone National Park is rather complex.
I'm Randy Baum, facility manager over roads and fleet in Yellowstone National Park.
We groom our roads all winter long for winter use
which snowmobiles, snowcoaches travel over, pack it
With the amount of snow we get,
anywhere from two feet to six, to eight, to ten feet
it packs it pretty hard that a normal plow will not go through
the snow pack that's there.
So over the years we evolved to where we'll pull a huge wedge grader
through with a couple of bulldozers
just to break up the snowpack.
After the dozers and the v-plow go through
we'll come in with a large wing truck
to move the snow back as far as possible
in order for us to gain as many miles, or footage,
depends on how you look at it, per day.
Following the wing truck we'll bring in blowers
to clean up what's left on the floor
and what the wing truck could not get out of the cuts.
Mother nature plays probably the largest factor in production of what
we can get done in a day.
Breakdowns, they will happen.
We have two mechanics that travel with the crew
throughout their whole two and a half, three month adventure
of opening the roads in the park.
Breakdowns are fixed on the side of the road.
It's a little bit challenging in that respect some days,
but most of the crew has been involved with the snow
removal business for a period of years.
It's exciting to them to go out and try to meet those challenges.