Somewhere around here, there's a railroad. A White Pass "Cat" cuts down the deep snow pack to a level that will allow the line's rotary snow plow to operate without continuously stalling out. Immediately behind, we can see the rotary fleet attempting to follow, nearly buried in the snow canyon. The rotary and it's "feline" friend are operating just about a mile north of White Pass Station, in a region called "Canadian Shed", near MP 21. Back in the days when the rotary was in regular use, the WPY would never have allowed this much snow to accumulate. After all, the intake on the rotary is only about 13 feet high. With the present-day tourist line only operating from May until October, a season's worth of accumulated snow-pack can be 20 feet deep or more, necessitating the use of bulldozers to shave off the top layers and break up the "Canadian Concrete". Typically, two "Cats" are used and they will be brought to White Pass Summit by work train a couple of days before the rotary begins operations. The deepest snow runs from just before MP 20, to about MP 24, where the depths drop off to less than 6 feet and the rotary can handle that by itself. Interestingly, watching this operation struggle in the deep snow for a couple of days left me constantly wondering how the "Cat" operators know where the tracks are. With few landmarks, darn near white-out conditions and no GPS observable in the cab, these guys seem to have a sixth sense for the iron.
By the way, if the snow next to the rotary plow looks a bit on the dirty side, that's the rain of unburned bunker oil you're seeing. The rotary, and to a lesser extent, the two pusher engines, tend to leave a sooty stain on the snow adjacent to the tracks.
