Stowe Leaf Blow

Stowe mountain resort is located on the hichest peak in Vermont, Mount Mansfield, and as a way to help both the development of the ski resort and tourist attractions in Vermont, they built an access road to the top that you can drive up to (almost) the peak of Mount Mansfield.  An access road to the top of the mountain is cool, but surprisingly to me requires a lot of maintenance each year by the employee's of Stowe Mountain Resort.  

At Stowe Mountain today we helped to rake out and clean the culverts that drain water safely around the access road to the mountain.  This work basically sucked except for the fact that i got to run the hefty ol' leaf blower (which was only mediocre..).  We were required to rake and blow out all of the leaves to allow for all of the water to run effectively down the mountain without huge results of overflow and erosion.  It makes you think that a mountain needs a lot of maintenance that you wouldn't always think about and its important not to overlook.  This seemingly pointless activity can cost the mountain tens of thousands of dollars worth of repairs later.  Truth of the matter is that a successful ski resort doesn't overlook the little tasks like this.  You need to remember to watch and maintain things like wiggly sheaves, towers out of line (guage), too much sag in a haul rope, falling trees/power lines, fire codes, licensing for certain sales/services, lift inspections up to date, trail maintenance and mowing, legal codes, etc because they can all result in major expenses to a ski area. You often have to focus on some very little details to keep expenses of an area down.