Winter Roads

My brother asked me about driving here in Alaska during the winter and how well they keep the roads cleared; so I took this picture to answer his question. Basically...they don't clear the roads here. It was really crazy after the first snow in October to have 8" on the roads and no one coming to clear them. After two days of driving around, I called my neighbor and asked her when they were going to clear the roads. She replied that God would do it in April. I said "Huh?!?" Apparently the winters here are so long that it is impractacle to de-ice or salt the roads. It would be terrible on the roads, the cars, and the vegetation beside the streets. Instead, sometime within three days of a snow, the plows come through and merely scrape the top layer of loose snow from the streets leaving everything that has been driven on and smooshed down behind. Then if that gets icy, they come along with a different truck and spread this fine gravel and dark dirt mixture over the icy snow on the roads. Also, if the car owners have been smart, they have put studded tires or x-ice tires on their vehicles for the winter. Between the tires and the gravel, we usually travel without much difficulty. But, look at the picture...do you see road markings...NO?! Well, that is another joy of traveling here in the winter...unless you have lived here in the non-snow parts of the year...you will have no idea whether a road has two lanes, three lanes, two lanes each direction and a turn lane, etc. etc. You also have no idea whether you can pass or not and on the highway (which they do a better job of keeping clear) exactly where each lane begins and ends is a complete mystery. Drivers learn to look ahead at what the next person is doing and drive in existing tire tracks. If perhaps a line should show up and it doesn't match the tire tracks, still follow the tire tracks because you will screw everyone up behind you who are also trying to figure out how to navigate the roads. It is really quite an adventure. I would guess that the ice, snow, and gravel mixture outside our home on the street in the picture is approximately 6-8 inches deep. The dark patches on the road are not ashpalt but ice. Kids will literally practice their ice hockey and skating in the street because the ice is right there and ready to be used.