Snow Plowing Eases Commute
It’s 3:30 a.m. and 36-year-old Ryan Potter, Bard Grounds Manager, fumbles with his alarm clock until it stops beeping. After putting on his thermal underwear and work clothes, he pours himself a travel cup full of coffee, grabs a buttered roll, and crawls behind the wheel of his 4WD. As the defroster heats up and the windows clear, he heads off carefully across the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge, up Route 9G, then to the Bard Campus. There are 12 inches of freshly fallen snow on the ground, so he drives slowly and carefully. Luckily the town plows have been out all night.
Snowy Roads
The Bard Campus is another matter. Miles of roads, paths, and parking lots are knee deep in snow, sometimes many feet thanks to the 20 mile-per-hour winds. It’s going to be a long morning of plowing before the students can comfortably drive, park, or walk to classrooms.
Ryan pulls up to the Maintenance Building, where the equipment is housed, where he meets Randy Clum, Director of Buildings and Grounds. One by one the crew walk in and shake hands before the briefing. Jon Knudsen, Ross Stoddard, Dan McKenna, Joe Arsenal, Terry Lown, and Mike Thomas, augmented by a group of regular freelancers, are ready to tackle the seemingly daunting task of clearing Bard’s roads, byways, and paths so that tomorrow morning students can get to class.
Each member of the team uses equipment best suited to the job. The fleet consists of two dump trucks with plows, two half-ton pickups with plows, a dump truck with winged plows, and a handful of tractors and smaller snowblowers.
Plowing
Jon climbs up into a GMC half-ton pickup with a plow. As the engine warms up, he takes a swig of coffee, pulls down his woolen hat, scrapes the frost off the windshield, side, and back windows. He turns the key and as the engine comes to life, lowers the plow, tilts it 45 degrees to the left, and starts off down Bay Road. Six-foot mounds of snow peel off like surf waves in front of the massive plow. We’re getting somewhere, he thinks.
As he follows the twisting labyrinth of small roads, something catches his eye to the left. It’s Terry Lown, and they wave, and eventually catch up at an intersection and exchange a quick chat over the two-way radios.
More than 24 Hours of Plowing
“Watch out for the hill leading down to the Bito parking lot,” says Terry, “It’s iced up and slippery going.”
They scan the beautiful winter scene, still shrouded with a coating of fresh snow, nod, and keep going. The quiet scene is interrupted by the sound of their diesel engines laboring up and down the roads and walkways.
For the next 24 hours, Terry, Jon, and the team criss-cross the Bard campus, idyllic under any weather conditions but especially notable in the darkness this morning. Sunrise changes the contrast and tones almost imperceptibly, and it’s not too long before the geese, crossbills, and finches join the party. It’s another winter morning, and as students pour out of dorms and arrive on campus, no one gives much thought as to how hundred of tons of snow got moved from one place to another.
Except for the handful of students outside Campus Center, who are laughing, falling down in the snow, and trying to hit each other with snowballs, it’s just another school day.
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