The High Line and the Rotary Snowplow

A small park in Breckenridge is dedicated to the railroad workers of the South Park Line who kept the rail line operational from 1873 to 1937, a feat that required backbreaking work and sacrifice under harsh weather in winter – bitter cold, high winds, tall mounds of drifting snow, and avalanches. Brave railroaders fought the severe weather all winter long.

The winter days were so cold that, despite doubling up on wool underwear, shirts, pants, socks, coveralls, and jackets, by the end of the day, all clothes were frozen on the rail workers’ bodies. Returning home from a day’s work, men had to stand by the fire to thaw out before their wives were able to peel off their frozen clothing.

The Summit Historical Society in Colorado preserved amazing photos of the difficult snow weather conditions when the train and its huge rotary plow was covered in snow and frozen over. One photo shows an engine and the bucking plow at Kokomo in the Ten Mile Canyon, around 1915.

There were many things that could derail the train and cause horrible accidents in the middle of a gale and snow, when visibility was low – packed ice, snow, and rocks.

Archive photo of 1915

In blinding conditions, train engineers used a “bucking” or “butterfly” plow like No. 9 to push through the high snow drifts. When the engine stopped because of the high drifts, the engineer uncoupled the engine from the train and charged the drift, reversing the engine and “bucking” until “he rammed his way through.” According to the experts, the “bucking” required skill on the part of the engineer; if he did not back up fast enough, the engine could stall.

Railroaders were a tough bunch. They could not communicate with their dispatcher, they were on their own to extricate themselves from mountains of snow and ice, clear the track, and keep the train and the line moving. And they had one tool that helped them fight avalanches and tall drifts on Borcas Pass and Ten Mile Canyon, the “High Line” – the rotary snowplow.

The 108-ton rotary engine snowplow required six or seven “smoke-belching locomotives” to help propel it forward while the blades worked like a modern snow blower, blasting snow up to thirty feet on both sides of the railroad tracks.

According to the Summit Historical Society, the snowplow required four people to operate it – the pilot, the engineer, and two firemen. “The pilot sat in front, behind the blades, where he had a clear view of the track. Over the roar of the engine and blades, the pilot used whistle signals to communicate with the engines pushing the rotary.” Because the noise was so deafening, the pilot and the engineer communicated using bells and hand signals. I wonder how quickly this crew developed deafness from the high decibels, particularly since each shift lasted twelve hours.

The weather was so rough, the plow’s doors would ice-shut and had to be pried open from the outside. The rotary plow would be overwhelmed by snow and stop. During such time, “snow diggers” (“snowbirds”) would shovel the soaring drifts by hand, bringing the snow’s height to the height of the plow so that “the rotary could resume chewing through the snow.” These snow diggers lived in box cars, going wherever the rotary plow went.

One engine of the rotary snowplow

Railroad water bucket

Travel across the nation has come a long way since those times. Humans have always used ingenuity to beat the harsh weather and terrain in their quest for mobility. Americans have always loved the open roads and the rough weather never stopped them from their quest to go to impossible places and rarified heights.

                                            

Labor Day Trip to Colorado

I have enjoyed enormously our last trip to Colorado, and it wasn’t just the breathtaking vistas of rocky mountains, dizzying drops, and majestic mountains 14,000 feet tall.

The red eye flight to Denver was uneventful and the drive to the suburbs took us again past the infamous blue bronco statue with red eyes, a stallion standing high and alone in the middle of a hay pasture. Another statue of two eagles stood deceptively on the side of the interstate, fooling us into thinking that they were real.

Breckenridge

The blue spruce, evergreens, and aspens colored our days with a palette of blues, greens, and white contrasting starkly with the vividly blue sky, sunshine, cold lake waters, and furious rapid waters the size of creeks carving into the mountain or running over rocks and boulders standing in the way.

Lake Dillon is a man-made reservoir that provides fresh water for the city of Denver and is in Summit County, south of I-70 and bordered by the towns of Frisco, Silverthorne, and Dillon. It has 18 moderate trails at an altitude ranging from 9,025 to 13,845 feet above sea level. At the bottom of the 79 ft. deep reservoir, fed by the Blue and Snake Rivers, rests the old town which was flooded after the population was relocated for the third time (1961-1963) and the dam built.

Vail slopes at above 11,000 ft.

We picnicked high above its rim, with breathtaking views of white sailboats floating gently on the deep blue waters. We accidentally crashed a country wedding taking place at a scenic view stop along the trail. The sun was bright, the humidity low, there were no bugs disturbing our lunch, and the trail lead us higher and higher along a dizzying drop with evergreens jutting from the ground here and there. One strange buzzing insect could be heard in the bushes and a lone chipmunk came out briefly to get some sun.

Lake Dillon from above

Rubber duck race in Breckenridge

Not the least entertaining was the rubber duck race in Breckenridge when thousands of competitors paid a fee to float their numbered yellow rubber ducks down the creek in hopes that they would win the coveted $1,500 prize. The rest was sheer fun and excitement among both children and parents who brought them there. My oldest grandson managed to fall in and wet his hiking boots and socks while the other grandson was upset because he did not get to fall in like his brother.

Snow plow in the former Breckenridge train station

The Breckenridge train station celebrated the steam engine that plowed its way through mountains of snow and through transportation history. Civilization could not have existed without the rail and the steam locomotive.

The hues of green and blue mountains were tinged with armies of white barked aspens, digging their roots only 12 inches into the ground but connecting to each other like an army of electrically connected strings of Christmas lights. When one aspen falls, they all do.

The 3 a.m. trip to the ER due to acute mountain sickness (AMS) allowed me to experience the next day the beauty of Vail in a climbing gondola and in the company of family I cherish.

However painful it was to wake up at 2:30 a.m. out of breath and with an excruciating headache and nausea like I’ve never felt before, my eyes were wide open watching the myriad of twinkling stars outside our window, so close and perfect that I felt that I could have extended my hands and touched some of them.

Vail at 11,00 feet

Stops in Frisco, Georgetown, Evergreen, and Idaho Falls, a lovely western-style town from a by-gone era when energy was provided by a water wheel, completed the journey. I even found minerals for my grandson who has a fascination with faceted minerals, rocks, and walking sticks. To him pyrite is not just fool’s gold, but a shiny sample of the magical inner earth hidden under the majestic beauty of rocks, luscious and thick forests of evergreens and aspens, and cold-water creeks and rivers.