Monday, Monday...Snow Good to Me

The local channel 5 news has reported on how Anchorage is running out of places to put all the snow. City officials have been working literally non-stop since December clearing snow. This is something that is very close especially to our Administrative Assistant Ericka. Ericka's husband, Ernie, drives truck to help with snow removal. Ernie has had 1 1/2 days off since the beginning of January.

Monday is my day off. So my adventure for Monday was to find and photograph the biggest pile of snow in the Anchorage area. Who better to ask for direction than Ernie himself? Ernie directed me to south Anchorage. We are talking an hour drive to the WAY south side of town. Ernie assured me that there I would find several snow piles.

So Monday morning I headed into Anchorage and meandered south. The sunrise was gorgeous coming up over the mountains. An hour later I arrived at Target where Ernie said I would have the best viewing. I parked my car and climbed up one of the snow piles in the back of the Target parking lot. Once atop the "smaller" snow pile in the parking lot I had view of several deep piles.

Sunrise

The largest pile of snow is not as tall as I was expecting but it was very wide and extremely dense. Ernie had told me how he drives a water truck on top of the ever growing snow pile in order to compact each new layer to ensure the least amount of space is taken up.

Click for larger image. The snow pile is in the back behind the fence and stoplight. Unfortunately pictures do not do justice, but trust me it was tall (note half as tall as light poles) and WIDE extending outside the frame of this picture

Click for larger image-notice yellow truck on right side headed up the switchbacks

Click for larger image. Yellow Truck (far left) with box hoisted dumping and two more trucks (right) making their way up the switchbacks.

I watched for several minuets as the trucks came to the stoplight and then turned into what is normally a wide open grass/swamp area. The trucks literally drove 4 switchbacks on the solid pile of snow only to dump their load and build up higher pile that they would eventually drive on and create another switchback. 

From my position standing atop the target parking lot pile I could also see another pile of snow in the distance. This one was not as flat but peaked several stories into the sky. Ericka told me how she drove out earlier this month to visit Ernie and watched as the modified roll out loader piled and pushed the snow higher and higher. We are talking HUGE machinery with tires 10 feet tall and a special extension and hydraulic system to extend the loader up into the sky.

Another snow pile several stories tall I could see from atop the target parking lot pile.

Similar type of loader system they use to pile up the snow. (I did not take this picture credit: Google Images)

After watching a dozen or so snow trucks parade in and out to unload on the wide snow pile I climbed down from my post atop the target snow pile. I then drove up the road to find yet another huge snow pile. This pile was not near as peaked as the one above nor was it as compacted as the one I had watched for my morning entertainment. This one was full, tall, and evenly spread.

Notice height compared to light pole

These are four of hundreds of piles around Anchorage. The other piles are not as big/wide but there are many. Almost every parking lot has 1/3-1/2 of it's space occupied by snow piles. Open fields turned into snow mountains, the limited space (grass) areas between neighbors driveways piled high, road ditches and edges, not to mention the ends of roads or centers of cul de sac. SNOW! It's everywhere, but then again this is Alaska. :-)