Historic Hood River
A Snow Canyon
9-30-2016
Notes
We often talk about the Columbia River Highway, but shortly after its construction the Mt. Hood Loop Highway was completed. I don’t know what sort of snow removal equipment they had in this era, but that road looks very well groomed.
Dale Nicol
I think the snow blower/thrower was invented in the mid-20’s and blades/plows were used too. Four wheel drive trucks were also available. When outfitted with chains on all four wheels, they were able to move snow and clear roads.
Longshot
Part of the problem with early snow blowers is that they couldn’t throw snow far enough and tended to just shoot it almost straight up building the snow banks along the roadway higher and higher. Sometimes they would need to blow snow towards the opposite side of the road as they couldn’t clear the bank on the side they were working on because of the angles.
The blowers from the time period of this photo were probably 100hp or even considerably less while today’s blowers must be around 1000hp.
Arlen Sheldrake
driving in this environment would give new meaning to bumper cars but at least one would not need a guide rail…….yep as promised Arthur….you made it a cold day.