Tons of fun
The only time I gave my driveway a second thought was when it started to go downhill.
I’d say the problem started in 2021 with a 4-foot-deep spring snow. It broke all local trucks and plows with equal force. I found a plow guy at 1 a.m. on the Facebook “Plow thru Winter” page. He posted he was on Shadow Mountain and did anyone need a plow? Silly question. This guy was good – he came armed with a Bobcat with a 10-foot regular plow welded to the front. It took him 20 minutes and he charged me $75. He became my regular guy. He mentioned the small hole in the middle of the driveway that he could fill in the summer and went on his way.
In April 2024, Sandy Lane got a 5-foot spring snow and plows all over Evergreen and Conifer were once again breaking under the weight. My guy and his friend showed up 2 days later. They were stoned and drunk.
Now, most contractors I’ve dealt with are usually stoned and/or drunk. I learned that the hard way including the drunk electrician who wired 220-volt heat tape into a 100-volt slot on a new electrical panel and the tape caught the roof on fire. The fire department had questions.
Anyway, that bad snow day the two guys showed up with two trucks, neither with chains. Their blades caught the various assortment of rocks poking through the dirt, leftovers from previous plow drivers going for gold. They slipped around like amateurs until they drove one truck off the edge of the driveway and couldn’t tow it out. They left and came back for it hours later. The heavy snow, lack of traction, mud and inebriation created what came to be known as the Pit of Despair. They promised to come back in the spring to fix it. After all, they’re driveway specialists. At least that’s what the sticker said on the side of the truck door.
Spring came and water pooled where the driveway slope flattens out near the front of the house. By June 2024 it measured 20’x20’x10” and never dried out. In July, local wildlife considered it their watering hole.
These yahoos weren’t the first driveway “specialists” I’ve dealt with. I’d been given a referral and he talked a lot of smack-talk and used lots of jargon. He was a jerk. Days went by and no text with an estimate arrived. After a week I asked him about the estimate and he told me, “That’s not how I do business.” He was Driveway Yahoo #1.
The drunk guys were Driveway Yahoos #2. We had texted through the summer; they were always going to come out. In October they came up with a plan and I came up with the money. The plan was for that Monday. It came and went. When they did respond it wasn’t pleasant. They were angry because they said they had two trucks of material waiting and I didn’t text them that I was ready although I still have the text conversation on my phone proving otherwise. Apparently their phones only receive texts and not send them. They ghosted me for the driveway and for plowing.
Another 3-foot storm in November 2024 was more like a heavy, wet spring storm. Nobody expected it and it broke trucks and plows. The only person I could get to plow was a kid with a new company. New truck, new sticker on the door. His price was $250 to plow during this “emergency,” and would I be interested in signing a contract? A regular plow would be $175. But that day he wasn’t chained up and would only plow part of the driveway and in the battle of wits, the snow won. He didn’t want to stop and chain up to finish – he had other customers. He still wanted $250, and I wrote him a check. For days after that he kept texting me asking when I wanted to sign a contract. I gave him as many excuses as he gave me.
The snow he didn’t plow turned to ice and mud and caused problems on the flat portion of the driveway and that area won’t see sun until May. When parked, my car sat at a weird angle because of the ice mounds. The Pit of Despair grew.
Driveway Yahoo #3 was a highly recommended local guy I found on the local Facebook page. Yes, FB is evil but a necessary evil up in the mountains. He came by and said, “As soon as it warms up.” He too was a driveway “specialist.” He said he’d call in the spring. He left.
Driveway Yahoo #4 was a local kid who lives up here and KNOWS how things should be done. He came up with a plan and a reasonable charge. His suggestion was to put down 13 tons of fill dirt to cover mud, rocks all along the driveway and up to the house. Three-quarter-inch gravel would go over the top of that. He disappeared for two weeks because he said he couldn’t find a local dump driver willing to pick up and deliver 13 tons. I found Ewing Material and within 48 hours and the fill dirt was delivered and spread. The kid even scraped road base off Sandy Lane and added it to the watering hole. He kept saying, “I hope this doesn’t get too muddy.”
Five times I tried to get Ewing to deliver the ¾” gravel but it was always too muddy, too cold, too snowy, too far. The dump drivers were game; the dispatcher had a stick up his ass.
I began to wonder about and lost faith in Driveway Yahoo #4. You can put a logo on the side of the truck and show before/after pictures of driveways but doesn’t mean they know what they’re doing. He also had time management issues. In his world 9 a.m. really means 4 p.m. Every time he was here he kept saying, “I hope this doesn’t get too muddy.”
It did.
Driveway Yahoo #5 was a referral from Ewing. He’s an expert, they assured me. This person lives up here and KNOWS how things should be done. I’ve heard this before. He made it clear that he’s more than happy to do the driveway in the spring but if it was urgent he’d come out and look at it. He didn’t care either way. But there can’t be any snow. Or mud. We set up two meetings and he canceled two meetings. He said he’d contact me in the spring.
On a normal Wednesday I was hauling the trash cans up to the road. A man named Johnny was walking his dogs on Sandy Lane and said hello and we got to chatting. He’s a plow guy, lives a block away and would be happy to take care of my driveway. He charges $50, cash. He commented it was in pretty-rough shape, and he too had a friend who was a driveway specialist. He gave me his card. He said the guy had done his driveway and several others in the neighborhood. He assured me he did excellent work.
January 2025 came and with it below zero temps and the mud froze solid. I forgot about it again. Until the last week of January when Conifer got a 10-day streak of 50-degree weather.
Let’s just say the mailman’s truck has a big scrape on the side where it slid into the post at the top of the driveway when his little bald-tire and two-wheel vehicle gave him a bad day. The combination of mud and clay created a soup of strength. I watched something I’ve never seen – a vehicle with its brakes engaged, tires not moving but the mud had other ideas. It carried the mail truck about 10 feet sideways towards the edge. If it wasn’t for the post, he’d been in the trees. Now the post lays down in the trees, gouged and broken.
The warmer it got the worse it got. The clay-laden fill-dirt mud was 8” deep and you had a fighting chance by the house where it’s flat but the top of the driveway was fit for a mud bogging event. The one advantage to all the mud was no one on Shadow Mountain Drive would tailgate me because my tires were throwing sizable mud clots with both distance and accuracy.
I called the guy. He said he’d come out that week. That was Monday. By Tuesday it was almost 60-degrees and I was a wreck. Almost to the point of weeping like a little girl. The mailman was the final straw and now I was having trouble getting out. The guy came out the next morning and said he could fix the driveway on Thursday and don’t worry – this isn’t the worst driveway he’d ever seen. He added a word of caution: my driveway was now a hazard. If I needed emergency services of any kind, they might not be able to get in or out. That really caught my attention. We talked further and his plan was 60 tons of road base: crushed and also quarter-sized rocks that create a kind of binding agent and when it gets wet, it sets. Delivered, smoothed and the problem would be solved. The price … reasonable.
Thursday morning came and he showed up early with a flatbed truck and Bobcat. He smoothed the driveway as best he could. He, too scraped road base from Sandy Lane on put it on the driveway. About 2 hours later two massive dump trailers lined up on the road. They dumped their loads and he moved the road base to the driveway, smoothing it out as he went. About noon he tells me a third load was coming. He thought 60 tons was enough, but I needed another 30. An hour later another massive dump trailer showed up.
Now I have to say something about paved asphalt, pulverized asphalt and concrete. Many driveways up here are covered with those materials and their owners are happy with them. The caveat is they’re massively expensive so they’ve become almost a status symbol. In my case, I have neither the money nor the inclination to use those materials because they contain lime and the driveway is 50 feet above the well. Lime and water wells don’t mix.
But I had my doubts about the road base. It looks just like fill dirt and I’ve been down that road before. But this road base comes from a mountainside quarry just off Highway 8 at US 285 so it’s locally sourced. I hate being behind those massive dump trailers on the highway because they’re windshield killers but I’m grateful when they’re on Sandy Lane with my order.
Six hours later the job was done. It was smooth and already like concrete in places. Other areas it was soft but much more solid than before. The stuff already begun to harden in just a few hours. And there’s a bonus, it doesn’t stick to your shoes. I have a pair of Skechers that may never come clean again because that fill dirt is sticky like toffee on a hot day. You can’t brush it off, scrape it off, soak it off, wash it off.
The driveway is now curing and it’s easy to get in and out. My plow guy, Johnny, knows he needs to be careful with this driveway and not scrape to dirt but to bump up his plow and leave an inch or two of snow.
It’s always something up here. Fix the roof, find more firewood, fix the furnace, fix the heat tape, fill the massive mud puddle. And that’s just January.