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Ski Utah's new Last Chair will take you inside Utah's resorts for the story behind the Greatest Snow on Earth®. In a weekly series of audio features, host Tom Kelly will bring you behind the scenes with resort leaders, athletes and fascinating figures who are the stories inside Utah skiing and snowboarding. Whether you're a passionate local snow rider, or a guest to the Utah mountain landscape, you'll learn about mountain life through the stories of the men and women who shape the Ski Utah experience. Each Last Chair episode is 30-40 minutes, with insightful questions and fun anecdotal facts. As a career communicator, Kelly weaves stories with ease bringing listeners inside the mountain tales of Utah skiing and snowboarding.
Tom Kelly: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Last Chair podcast. We are in probably one of the coolest places you can be outside of being at the ski resorts. And we're in the Utah Department of Transportation's Cottonwoods maintenance shed down here just outside of a big, big Cottonwood Canyon. With us today, Jake Brown. And Jake, welcome. Thanks for joining us on Last chair.
Jake Brown: [00:00:19] It's good to be here.
Tom Kelly: [00:00:20] You guys have been busy this year.
Jake Brown: [00:00:22] Real busy. Good start to the snow year.
Tom Kelly: [00:00:25] It's a great start. I know that for us as skiers, we really love it. But, boy, this puts a lot of work on you and your team.
Jake Brown: [00:00:32] It does. Every year it seems to get busier and busier and we have to get more creative and understanding of what we're dealing with. So, yeah, every year brings a good challenge.
Tom Kelly: [00:00:44] You know, I have to start out though, and say on behalf of all of us as skiers and riders, all of the listeners of the Last Chair podcast, we want to thank you and what your team does, because we wouldn't be able to do what we do up in the Cottonwoods if it weren't for the the folks on your team and the plows that you've got to keep the keep the road open and keep it safe for us.
Jake Brown: [00:01:04] Yeah. Thank you. The boys and girls at the Cottonwood shed, they work really hard. They work tirelessly, long hours. And they understand that a lot of people want to get up there and ski and they understand that. And they do their best to make sure the roads open.
Tom Kelly: [00:01:20] Well, later on in the podcast, we're going to talk a little bit more about what the skiers and riders can do in return to help your team and help them with their work. Tell us a little bit about your role and responsibility yourself and also those of your teammates here at Cottonwoods.
Jake Brown: [00:01:35] Okay. I'm the South District area supervisor and I have a foreman named Shawn Wright, and he is the Cottonwood Canyons supervisor. And our role is to basically orchestrate and schedule the plows up and down the canyon and also take care of the freeway and all the roads leading to the canyons, basically all the state routes. So our responsibility is to make sure that we have enough people for the heavy equipment and the plows and to make sure that we have enough salt and and make sure that everybody's up and and going and need where they need to be and and take on the storm. So we become a weatherman and a kind of a jack of all trades.
Tom Kelly: [00:02:14] How many people are on the team here at Cottonwoods?
Jake Brown: [00:02:17] There are ten people here that are on the team and then we have some on-call drivers that we use, but they are actively working.
Tom Kelly: [00:02:26] Every storm we've got right now in the shed, we've got over a half a dozen huge Mack plow trucks. How many do you have working out of this base?
Jake Brown: [00:02:36] There are ten trucks that work out of this. And then we have two graders, two blowers, two snowcats, and then several other pieces of little equipment that we use to keep the canyon running.
Tom Kelly: [00:02:46] Now, your responsibility is essentially cottonwoods and some of the adjoining freeways, Parleys Canyon is a separate crew?
Jake Brown: [00:02:54] Yes. That's how the separate crew. That'd be a really busy shed if we had part of this canyon. No, it's a separate shed. And they have their own operation.
Tom Kelly: [00:03:03] So how did you get into this? I think a lot of us would look and say, hey, this is really a pretty cool job. But how did you land here?
Jake Brown: [00:03:10] Well, one day, 22 years ago, I saw a newspaper article. That's how old I am. I applied for a job and said, Come apply. The new I-15 and I started my career in UDOT and about seven years ago the foreman of the Cottonwood Canyons decided to retire and they were looking for a new person to fill that role. And I was told on a Friday that I was that person that was going to fill that role and report to Cottonwood Canyons on Sunday. And my first day here was a storm and I got baptized by fire on on what that would be like in the Cottonwood Canyons and never looked back. I've enjoyed every minute of it and been involved in all sorts of activities in the Cottonwoods and tried to make it a safer and fun place to be.
Tom Kelly: [00:04:02] We're going to dive into the Cottonwoods in a minute. But you spent a lot of years then working on the interstate highway, which is quite a different situation than the cottonwoods. But tell us a little bit about that. Keeping I-15 and I-80 open.
Jake Brown: [00:04:13] Yeah, we definitely worked -- you work with traffic and safety, keeping I-15 open and understanding how traffic flows and works. I actually brought that experience to the Cottonwoods, as you've seen over the last probably 5 to 6 years. You've noticed islands and high T intersections and different things like that, and we're able to bring that from downtown and put it up into the cottonwoods and and help traffic flow a little better. So I take pride in what we've done down in the valley and learned and brought it up to the Cottonwoods where people said, you can't do that. This is a canyon road. You can't put an island here. And we had to prove them wrong and we did. And we've tried to make it function. Better for that for the higher traffic output.
Tom Kelly: [00:05:03] For those listeners who maybe aren't from Utah and aren't familiar with some of the details of that, can you explain a little bit more about why that made such a difference?
Jake Brown: [00:05:11] Well, we had a canyon road and we have a great resorts and we have the greatest snow on earth. And a lot of people like to come to Utah for that reason. And besides minor changes, we really haven't done anything to the road in the last 10 to 20 years. And so we were getting higher traffic volumes. More people wanted to come ski, the resorts were getting more people that wanted to ski their terrain. And so we had to change with it. We had to adapt some of our ways. We did things where we plowed, some of the traffic safety devices, different things such as islands, high T intersections. We had to install them to make sure that people could flow out of the canyon and people didn't get stuck in traffic because we do have such a high avalanche area in the Cottonwoods.
Tom Kelly: [00:06:06] So let's talk about that a little bit. And I've heard some of the statistics with little Cottonwood Canyon, but give us a sense of the avalanche danger in little and in big. I don't think people really have enough appreciation for how dangerous these roads really are.
Jake Brown: [00:06:24] Yes, there are just 62 slide paths that can hit the road at any time in Little Cottonwood Canyon. And we've seen a lot of those run. I was actually buried in an avalanche with our communications, Bri. She was buried, and myself were buried, in our pickup truck -- at 7-Turns. And that's a famous lookout where people pull off and take pictures of the valley. But we were up there and we were hauling a snow cat getting ready for avalanche control work that morning. And an avalanche came down and buried our truck completely. So at any time you can be hit by an avalanche. But it's hard to see when you are driving up the canyon. You're like, where's the avalanche danger? I look up the hill, I can't see anything. And you have to really kind of look. So next time you're up on the tram or you're up and out to look at the canyon -- down canyon. Look how steep that is. Look where all the starting zones are. Way up high, 10,000 feet and the snow ... those are very steep and cause a real danger to the road. So our goal is UDOT working closely with the avalanche crews to keep the road moving. We don't want people stopping in avalanche zones. We want the road ... cars to keep moving and keep going. And so that's what our goal is, to keep people moving at all times.
Tom Kelly: [00:07:49] I know that in Little Cottonwood you have those situations, you have those as well in Big Cottonwood, maybe not quite to that degree, but what are the scenarios you face in big cut.
Jake Brown: [00:07:58] Big Cottonwood Canyon? We deal with more what we call bluffs, you know, small little avalanches that come off the road. They can take up to a lane, to a to a half a lane and about five, ten feet deep enough to stop the road, enough to stop a car. We do have some bigger slide paths in Big Cottonwood Canyon, and those are monitored by an avalanche crew. Those haven't gone for several years, gone down and hit the road. But if they do, they will block the road in a major fashion. They are big slide areas and can go very big.
Tom Kelly: [00:08:28] As skiers, we're accustomed to getting avalanche reports from Utah Avalanche Center, which does a magnificent job in informing skiers and snowboarders what they can expect up at the high elevations. What do you rely on for that kind of knowledge when you're sending your plows out at four in the morning?
Jake Brown: [00:08:45] We have our own Utah Avalanche crew that just their sole purpose is the safety of the road. So they'll work really closely with my foreman, Shawn Wright. He's over the Cottonwood Canyons and they'll work with him and give him warnings. They'll put out an avalanche warning. All snowplow drivers have to wear transceiver beacons and be ready. And they have specialized backpacks that they can dig themselves out of an avalanche if they need. And they've been trained to use those. And we rely on them heavily to kind of watch our backs. But when it starts getting dicey, they start shutting us down. But we work closely with them to keep the road going and open while they're doing their control work. So we work in unison really well with them. So as they're doing control work on the road, we're plowing, moving snow, pushing it, blowing snow and getting ready for the road to open. So as soon as they're done with their avalanche control work and we have all the sites cleaned up, we're ready to go. So you can get up on that first chair and enjoy the mountain.
Tom Kelly: [00:09:47] I'm going to ask you about a typical day. And I know there is no such thing as a typical day, but give us a little bit of a sense of with a big overnight snowfall. Let's say it starts snowing at four or 5:00 the evening before. You're going to get another foot to three feet overnight. What's kind of the routine that you'll go through in the cottonwoods and what time do you in a scenario like that, might you deploy your plow equipment?
Jake Brown: [00:10:10] Okay. So we'll stop plowing the canyon around 8:00 or 9:00 at night, depending on personnel. And then we will leave the canyon overnight and we'll and then we'll have a crew right in at 4:00 in the morning and we'll have two pickup trucks, one pickup going up each canyon, and they'll get to the equipment, the grader and the blower. And the grader and blower will start working from the top down and start working around and start moving the snow. Then by then, the plows are heading up the canyon to make their first run. So right around about 4:15, 4:20, the plows will enter the mouth of the canyon and start making their first plow up. Pretty amazing to see. They will have the front plow deployed with also two wings and heading up the canyon and pushing back as much as they can to get the road open. So they have a big responsibility to get all the way to the top of the mountain. And sometimes it's not always even easy. Even when you drive a snowplow. Sometimes you do get stuck. Sometimes you do spin out, sometimes you do get in trouble and slide off the road. So they are up against a lot when they head up the mountain. Sometimes it's: "is the road over here? Is the road over here." A funny experience. We were driving up the road one day. I was getting the equipment guys up to their equipment and I had gone off the road several times to my pickup truck trying to know where the road is, and they said the plow driver got on the radio and he says, "I'm going to follow your tracks, boss." And I said, "Don't follow mine. I went off the road like three times." He goes, "I know. I found out." So, I mean, they deal with that type of situation, zero visibility, heavy snows and an avalanche danger. So they're out at 4 a.m. making their first run up the canyon and they'll continue to make runs as many as they can till 8:00 at night.
Tom Kelly: [00:12:00] I want to go back to that pickup truck that goes up first. So you actually put a grader in a blower up at the top of the canyon, but that pickup truck is gone. There's been no plowing. It's their plow blade on the pickup.
Jake Brown: [00:12:10] No, it's probably the funnest ride you can ever have. You go up there, you you got to pin it to win it. And these are big pickup trucks with lifts and bumpers on them. And they're designed to be up there. And sometimes you got the pedal to the metal and you don't slow down and you just get up there and it takes a lot to get up there sometimes. And so that's the wild ride right there, that stuff. That's the fun part. Trying to get up in the canyon in the morning to get to the equipment.
Tom Kelly: [00:12:41] That sounds like an amazing adventure. So I'm looking out at these Mack trucks and give us the specs on these babies. These are big, big trucks.
Jake Brown: [00:12:48] Yeah, they're big trucks. They have 12 foot wide blades on the front with 10 and a half to 11 feet piles on the side wing pine wing blades. They can carry anywhere from, depending on the axles, they can carry anywhere from eight yards of salt to 12 yards to 14 yards, depending on the size of sander. We like to put about £250 per lane, mile of salt down on the roadway to get people going.
Tom Kelly: [00:13:22] And tell them, tell me a little bit about what the salt does. I know all of us see it. We see the trucks spreading it. But give us a sense of what the salt does. And also, I know you use a brine solution as well. What are the differences between those and how do they help with preparation of the roadway?
Jake Brown: [00:13:37] So we use a salt and a lot of people that think salt melts the snow and that is not accurate. That snow, our salt lowers the freezing temperature of the road, which allows the snow to melt. And so we'll put the salt down, which changes the road temperature. It takes a little bit. The road will actually get colder before it gets warmer. So we'll kind of deal with that at very first. And then as the salt begins to work, traffic is our friend. And so we use a real gritty salt. We use the salt that's been mined out of Redmond, Utah. And so it's got bigger salt crystals and different things like that. And those it's a longer lasting salt. So we'll grind down and give traction, but also lasts a lot longer on the road and cut through some of that tough ice.
Tom Kelly: [00:14:29] You know, I hadn't really thought of this before, but we were talking about it before the interview about how that pressure of traffic coming over, pushing that salt down to the roadway, how vital that is.
Jake Brown: [00:14:40] Yeah, traffic is your friend. A lot of people think that we should just shut down the road and plow the road and then let traffic have it. And we never get the road cleaned that way. So what we have to do is we have to use a combination of salt and then brine. Brine is a concentrated salt water that we spray on the road. And with the spray system can cut through ice pack and get salt going underneath the ice pack underneath the road and get it going. It also activates a salt. So in reality these last couple of storms were really dry, not a lot of moisture in the snow, really like density snow. And so salt needs moisture to work. And if there's not a lot of moisture in the snow, then we can activate it by using the brine and give us a head start on getting the salt activated before it hits the road.
Tom Kelly: [00:15:27] It's really fascinating. I know that as skiers, we really appreciate the greatest snow on earth. It is light. There is pretty low water content. So that makes it a little bit more challenging for you.
Jake Brown: [00:15:36] Yes, colder storms make it a lot more challenging. The snow off the road we try to do about, I would say, about 80, 85%. Mechanically. You get the snow off the road and the rest is done with chemical, with salt and a brine solution.
Tom Kelly: [00:15:52] Let's go back to the trucks and the plow configuration. So you had about I think it's about a 12 foot blade as the primary in front of the trucks. But when you put the wings on it and you do you use the wing attachments then in big and little cottonwood and how much width does that give you.
Jake Brown: [00:16:05] All the time? And you can basically plow from white line to white line on either side when there's no traffic. So you can come up with a plow and clear the road all the way, all the way up to white line. The white line.
Tom Kelly: [00:16:19] In a typical scenario on a winter morning, would you have traffic stopped in the canyon when you're plowing up, breaking little?
Jake Brown: [00:16:25] No, we would not stop traffic for operations. So usually traffic is pretty low at 4:00 in the morning. Not too many people are on the road, but we do have employees in different things. But we usually can deploy two wings, but then those wings will rapidly come up if we see traffic coming downhill.
Tom Kelly: [00:16:41] You have a good communication system, I know, with the ski areas, so they can also get the message out. But is is that communication pretty vital to to get the information out to those traveling the roads?
Jake Brown: [00:16:54] Yes. If you would have told me five to six years ago and you would have told my foreman, Shawn Wright, that social media and communication would help you plow the road. I laugh at you. I would laugh at you. But I think good communications, good comms with the resorts and with our fellow skiers and through our Cottonwood Canyons communication team, we have been able to educate people of what the road looks like, how it looks, what you're going to expect when you get there. And I think we have better prepared drivers because of it. So I think it's been a great help and a great communication. Working with the resorts is vital and being successful on the roadway and they really help out a lot and they pitch in and support us and do the things. And with those relationships, we're able to get the road open sooner and faster and we're able to get people down quicker because there's so much communication going on behind the scenes.
Tom Kelly: [00:17:51] Back to the equipment. One of the interesting pieces of equipment that I was looking at before the podcast was that you have a trailer blade. I you have to give me the technical term that you can pull behind your trucks. Tell us about that and what advantage that gives you.
Jake Brown: [00:18:05] So that's a tow plow. So you basically get one guy that can drive two plows. So the truck has a plow on the front of it and then that trailer jackknifes on the back of it. So it jackknifes on the back and then it can cover basically two lanes. And so and that carries its own salt also. So we use those on the freeways, but we can use those on any secondary routes, your State Streets, your Redwood Roads, your Mountain Views, your Bangerters and your I-15s or I-215s. We use them all around there and they give us an extra advantage and we don't have to worry about another truck. We can just use that truck. So on, on I-215 when you're heading up to the canyons and the tow plows in the number one lane and you have a plow truck following it, we can wipe it, wipe it clean. And that way you can get up to the resorts quicker. So UDOT has seen the value in that and we're going to march towards that. But you will probably not see it up in the canyon, even though we'd like to take it up the canyon once or twice to see how they'll do. But Cottonwood Canyons is probably not a place for the tow plow to be unless it's closed and no one's on the road.
Tom Kelly: [00:19:15] Yeah, it's just a really fascinating device. I'm going to be looking for that out on the highway. By the way, I think all of us love those Darth Vader glow sticks you've got on the edges of the plow.
Jake Brown: [00:19:23] Yeah, The green sticks are to give people a warning of the wing sticking out there. A couple of years ago, we had a plow driver on Highway six that was plowing. A semi hit his wing and set him over the guardrail, almost killed him. And so we've tried to bring attention to our wings to let people know that they're sticking out there. They're bright enough to stay away from them. They know where they are so they don't run into them and send us flying off onto the side of the mountain.
Tom Kelly: [00:19:51] We've talked a lot about equipment. Let's talk about the personnel. You have a great team of people and I would imagine that a pretty veteran. Our drivers are on this team that does the Cottonwoods. What's the makeup of the people behind the plows?
Jake Brown: [00:20:04] Young kids. We're getting a lot of turnover. But we've hired a lot of the younger generation and they're stepping up. And each year they fulfill a different role. They get used to playing in the canyon and they take on different roles every year. And so we have guys that have worked here five to six years, you know, in experience. And then my foreman over the cottonwood, he's worked here for 25 years. I mean, I always kind of joke around that he used to plow on his baby walker up here. He's made out of UDOT spare parts, and when he runs out, we just go grab another spare part and put it on him. But he's been up here the most and has the knowledge and we tried to share that knowledge and train new plow drivers and try to get them baptized into the Cottonwoods and give them plenty of experience. But every driver here can plow the canyon and plow it effectively.
Tom Kelly: [00:21:02] And this is not a regular job. Like I'm going to go to work from 8 to 5 today. They're pretty much on call, I would imagine, based on what the weather is doing.
Jake Brown: [00:21:09] Yeah, we're if it's snowing. That's the beautiful thing about Cottonwood. She could be downstairs. You could be down in the valley mowing your grass and it could be snowing up in the cottonwoods. So you learn to be a weatherman. And we have a saying. We say sleep fast. So you go to bed and then you sleep fast, and then you're back here at 4:00 in the morning ready to go. And there are dedicated group of employees. They take pride in what they do and they take pride in how they do it. And they work really hard to make sure that you can get up the canyon in the morning. And the thing is, I can only think of maybe two of them that actually ski and the rest of them don't ski. They don't they don't have anything to do with skiing or the mountains or the Cottonwoods or and never been up to Snowbird or Brighton until they drove past it and put a sign up or something. So that's the type of person that's out plowing the road is not just your general skier or someone that's fascinated at the mountains. It's someone that's come from just the valley and wanted to challenge and has stepped up to a challenge to do that.
Tom Kelly: [00:22:28] One last thing before we take a quick break and then we'll be back. But I'm going to head out with Shawn here and we're going to go out and do a drive with a big snowstorm coming in. Tell us what I can expect and what should I be looking for when I'm up there in the Cottonwoods?
Jake Brown: [00:22:43] As you're a plow driver, you have to kind of watch out. Yeah. Like I said, you have a 12 foot blade in front of you. You have a wing that sticks on the side of you out about ten feet, and then you're going up a narrow canyon. So you have to watch out for people that lose, don't have the proper tires or the proper traction devices on. They may slow you down, spin out in front of you. You have to watch out for the occasional bike that's trying to make it up the canyon. To go ski. You have to watch out for many different obstacles in the road, and then you have to watch out your visibility, whether it's snowing hard and watch out for that. But then you have to be ready, ready for anything, really. So you have to live your life with your head on a swivel and on and watch out for parked cars. That's one of the biggest thing, is make sure you find the white line and part to the right of it, not the left of it, the right of it. And take a shovel with you. Make sure you find that white line, make sure you're good and parked off the side of the road. And so those plow drivers can keep the road clear.
Tom Kelly: [00:23:45] Well, I'm excited about the trip. I'm going to head up into the truck right now. It is snowing outside. We're going to take a trip up the Cottonwoods and plow some snow. Jake. We're going to be back when we come back to the shed and talk a little bit more about how skiers and riders can help your guys up there in The Cottonwoods. We're with Jake Brown from UDOT Cottonwoods crew. We'll be right back.
Tom Kelly: [00:24:33] Wow, That was an amazing experience. I hope you enjoyed that little trip Up The Cottonwoods with Shawn Wright. Great experience to get up there. Lots of snow up there. Jake, thanks for sticking around to finish this up. I want to talk to you as we we close out about ways that skiers and snowboarders can help you. You talked a little bit about this in the first section, but what are some of the things that skiers can do when they're getting ready to head up to the Cottonwoods? How can they be prepared? What things should they avoid? How can they give you guys some space? Just walk us through some of the key points to make it a little bit easier for your crew.
Jake Brown: [00:25:06] Okay. The key points that I would really like to touch on today is make sure you have good tires, make sure you have RMS or three peak tires, make sure you're good to go with your all wheel drive system if you have a two wheel drive vehicle, that's all right. Make sure you have your traction devices, your chains, your socks, whatever you have as your traction device. Make sure you have that. Make sure you're prepared to drive in winter conditions. I would say that first.
Tom Kelly: [00:25:29] Of all, let's talk a little bit about tires. So I know this is always a challenge and a lot of people think, oh, I'm fine, I've got four wheel drive. But really the tire is the most important thing, right?
Jake Brown: [00:25:39] It is. You can have four wheel drive and not go anywhere. Four wheel drive doesn't mean anything. Tire and ice don't mix. I mean, so you've got to have a good tire. So a three peak tire or MS tires, you'll see that on there. And we want to make sure you have good tires and you could go to our website, Cottonwood Canyons dot gov and make sure that you look on there that will tell you all the requirements you need for your tire. And usually people don't know they have bad tires till they do. So usually when you stop, when you're sliding or you're not going anywhere, you've got out and you're like, Wow, I have both tires and you don't realize it until you actually do that. So we encourage people to get out, look at your tires, see it? They're good. Check for an MZ or a three peak and be ready to go. My experience and Shaun's experience up in the canyon is a shovel can get you out of a lot of trouble. So if you find yourself stuck or things a little shovel under the snow, shovel some snow away from your tires and you can be back up and on the road. The next thing is just just be prepared with traffic. What you're going to face. A lot of people don't know what they're going to face when they come up the Cottonwoods. You can get on our Instagram account, Twitter, different things. We will show you pictures of what the road looks like if you don't feel comfortable driving in those winter conditions, let us to do the driving for you. Let take the bus and reduce the amount of vehicles in the canyon. So we encourage that. So we want people to understand if you don't feel comfortable driving in a snowstorm, you don't feel comfortable driving on icy roads, then let us to do that for you and park at a park and ride and come up and enjoy the canyons. We want you to come up, but we want you to do it safely.
Tom Kelly: [00:27:27] For those who are listening, if you want to go to the Ski Utah website Ski Whatcom, We're going to have links with the podcast to many of these resources with UDOT. We're also going to have links to the social media channels, particularly the Twitter feed, where you can get the latest updates on what's going on in the canyon. For somebody who's flying in to Salt Lake City, to the New Salt Lake City International Airport and renting a car. I know UDOT has done some work with car rental agencies to try to get more mdrs or snowflake tires on those rental cars. Can you give us a little bit of insight on on what folks can expect there? And and also, can they go to the desk and say, listen, I really need to have a car that's properly equipped?
Jake Brown: [00:28:05] Yeah. On our website we have agencies that have partnered with us and you can look and look for that and and ask for a Cottonwood Canyon's certified car and there'll be a sticker in the corner that will let you up there. That means that that vehicle has all wheel drive or four wheel drive and it has the proper tires at the proper tread depth. You can go up there and not worry about getting turned around or or not making it because that vehicle will make it up there. So we've worked tirelessly with rental companies to get this, to get there, and we've had great partnerships in that. So we've tried really hard to let people different ways because rental cars were a problem for a while and we're getting better cars in the canyon every year.
Tom Kelly: [00:28:55] Yeah, it's something, folks, that I don't think we can stress enough. If you're a local too, you can go to a variety of different tire companies and and repair dealerships in town to actually get that sticker and have your tires certified so that you know that what you've got on your vehicle is appropriate for going up the cottonwoods.
Jake Brown: [00:29:13] Yeah yeah. Free of charge. And then that sticker in your in that corner of your windshield also tells the police that you've already been checked. So they're not going to stop you and check your tires. You're going to see your sticker and wave you on. And so that's that's important and keeping the congestion down in the mouth also. So by doing that, you're you're taking care of two problems. You're getting you're getting proper tires and you're doing your part to help help the congestion in the canyon and reduce slide offs and backups. But then you're also when UPD is checking for traction devices and they see that sticker, they wave you on, they're not worried about you, and they'll go on to the next person that doesn't have a sticker.
Tom Kelly: [00:29:53] One last point that I want to bring up is given the plows a little bit of space. I'm sure that, you know, your team's going up there and there's some skiers behind you who are just really itching to get up and get that first lift. But it's pretty important that we as skiers and riders coming up the Cottonwoods or coming up I-80 to Park City over that We give your team a lot of space.
Jake Brown: [00:30:15] Yes, we had a problem with this. The last storm, some of the Cottonwood Canyons crew. We get people driving so close to us that the salt actually comes up on their windshield. It doesn't even hit the road because they're driving that close to the plow. The plow can encounter slippery roads and actually get stuck and have to maybe back up to get more traction to keep going again. So definitely give the plow at least three or four car spaces ahead of you. They are not going to obey the same traffic laws you are going to They may plow a little farther to the left, may pull out to the right. They may push snow in a different direction than what you expect. And if they're in front of you, they're in front of you for a reason. They're not there to make you get late. And none of them ski. So don't worry. They're not going to get first chair. It's all right. You can let them go ahead and get your vehicle there in a timely manner and don't slide off the road because then you won't get first chair. You may not even get last chair if you get stuck good enough. So just understand that our guys don't ski and they're not going to get first chair. So just make sure that you give them plenty of room, let them do their job, because that's their goal is to keep the road going. So you can you can get up there, but also you can go home.
Tom Kelly: [00:31:31] Well, the thing is, too, you're following a plow. You're going to get about as clean a road as you're going to get that morning.
Jake Brown: [00:31:35] Yes, sir.
Tom Kelly: [00:31:37] Jake, really, thank you for taking some time today. We're going to wrap it up with our segment of Fresh Tracks. Just a couple of questions. We've actually covered most of these already, but just some some quick questions for you. What's the biggest piece of equipment that you've ever worked with?
Jake Brown: [00:31:50] Probably our blower. We have a Kodiak blower up in Little Cottonwood Canyon and it's about, with the head on, it is about six feet tall and it will go through some pretty big avalanches and cut through some snow and really throw some snow a long way. And if you were standing next to it and you got hit by the full length of that snow, you wouldn't be standing. You'd be buried. So we have some pretty big equipment and we have graders and we use dozers and snow cats to clear slides as they come down on the road. So we use some pretty big equipment to keep keep the road open.
Tom Kelly: [00:32:25] So if you get one of those 62 avalanche paths to slide in Little Cottonwood, you call in the blower.
Jake Brown: [00:32:31] Yeah, the blower, the grader. And sometimes we have to have a dozer dropped off and we bring the snow cats down and we we try really hard because with those avalanches, they bring down a lot of full trees. We've had trees with full root balls. It was amazing the amount of debris that that buried my truck and buried myself and Bri were amazing. I mean, there were sticks everywhere, trees everywhere in that pile. You don't see it because it's all in snow. But once it melts, it was quite the lumber pile.
Tom Kelly: [00:33:04] Yeah, I guess I can imagine. Biggest storm that you can remember in your time here.
Jake Brown: [00:33:10] Biggest storm? I think the biggest storm was probably the one that we got buried with the avalanche two years ago. It snowed oval stuff, foot in the valley and it kept snowing and snowing in the canyons. And I think we had almost 15 to 18 avalanches on the road. And some of those were 15 to 30 feet deep and some 50 yards wide, if not longer. So it was a massive cleanup effort and things that we were dealing with. So that's probably one of the biggest storms I've dealt with. But we've had some big winners, but we were able to keep going. But as far as sticking out slide wise and avalanches and and working hard, it was that winter.
Tom Kelly: [00:33:54] Finally, Jake, we've talked about a number of different ways that skiers and riders can help you. But if you want to give one single most important piece of advice to somebody heading up the Cottonwoods, what would it be?
Jake Brown: [00:34:04] Go slow. Go slow, go slow. You're going to get there. It's a single file line. Go slow, be safe, because that's what you want to do. You don't want to wreck your car. You don't want to have a bad experience. You want to make it up to the mountain. But then we want you to make it home. So just go the speed that you need to go so you're comfortable. Have a properly equipped car and come enjoy the Cottonwoods.
Tom Kelly: [00:34:26] Folks. If you're listening, tip your hat and give a give a wave to the plow drivers when you're up in the cottonwoods they're doing. And a great job out there. Jake, thank you so much for sticking around and talk a little bit and for getting me out with Shawn for that right up Big Cottonwood. So thanks very much for being here.
Jake Brown: [00:34:41] Thanks, Tom.