Road Through The Snow

This looks like somewhere where snow is a permanent fixture.

Maybe it's a tourist attraction? Going by the clues of a large bus and a lot of people standing next to the road. On the way to a glacier, maybe? I have absolutely no experience with snow living in Oz.

I'm pretty sure it's real--I spent a few years living in Notrthern Japan, and in the winter they would dig out the roads like that to get up to some of the mountain resorts--it's not done all at once, but it builds up like that over the course of the winter so towards the end it can get that high.

Hmmm, reminds me of that one James Bond movie...you know which one I mean. Terrible film, lovely setting--at that ice hotel, I think? I always think it must be so pretty to live somewhere way up north, but then I remember how cold and wet and miserable it is in winter...

:down:

I grew up in Lake Tahoe and we often had snow very high like that, but it was more pathways than roads. I don't think I've ever seen a road paved like that.

I've never seen real snow. Could it be like a frozen fjord?

You've never seen real snow? I suppose you wouldn't, in Florida. How odd. I can confirm that snow is great while it lasts, especially if you're very young. However, it's depressing when it melts away, and the fields are a dull, boring green again. Snow! It's fantastic.

Ice slides!
I love the snow.

...Once I was in West Virginia & I saw a pile of water with bits of ice in it. It was melted snow...that's as close as I've come. Although, one Christmas when there was a really heavy snowfall in North Carolina, they put the snow in the back of a refrigerated truck, dumped it in a parking lot here, & set up Santa in a "winter wonderland." I was maybe 8 or 9. So, I guess I have SEEN snow, but it was dumped in a parking lot by a truck. It didn't flit down from the sky.

I've lived in the cold and snowy parts of Canada all my life, and I've never seen snow plowed that way, that high. On streets and sidewalks, yeah, it happens...but to cover a bus? Never in my life. I don't even know how a plow could reach up there...I think it'd take a very skilled, enormous, plow and driver to be able to do that.

It has been more then a year since I have seen snow.

Maybe it's THRU a glacier.

It's been more than a week since I last saw snow...

I've seem plenty of snow in my life. This is either Photoshopped or a picture of a street with fake snowbanks. Like someone mentioned in a previous post, there is no way you could get vertical snowbanks that high unless you had a snowblower 15 feet high. Roads that are plowed don't look like that. Plus the pavement is bare. Not something you would expect for a place that get this much snow. And the bus has no signs of snow on it or frost on the windows. Also the people walking along side don't look like they are dressed for winter.

The most snow I

i believe this picture is of tateyama in japan in toyam prefecture. i've been there in the winter time.

sorry toyama. it's real.

Looks real to me, too. The plow doesn't have to be 15 feet high because the snow falls over the course of a season in smaller increments, not all at once. Nor is it significant that the pavement and bus have no snow on them -- it can just be a cold but dry day, not unusual at all.

I've driven road conditions exactly like that on
Trail Ridge road in Rocky Mountain National Park.
The road goes over 12,000 ft. high and the plows
had just cleared it in early June. They have to
cut it that clean and vertical because they are
clearing as little as possible to open the road.

I vote real, since I see roads like this in the mountain passes around here. I've personally seen 2 story high snowbanks near Zopkios Ridge on the Coquihalla highway. You mount the snowblower on the boom of a front end loader to do this. Or, you use the bucket of the front end loader to "shave" the bank and pick up the snow off the road.

They have snowplows that, rather than simply shoving the snow to the edge of the road, take it up and blow it out of a spout so it lands off away from the road. Something like that could clear such a path as the one in the picture. And snow can linger with temperatures up into the 40's or 50's, so that could be why the people aren't wearing winter clothing and the bus isn't all frosted.

Come on, anyone who's lived in the mountains knows this is not only possible, but true... as an example: this website of a pass near where I grew up...

http://community.webshots.com/album/39171693DzFeQs

...But how are the walls so perfect, so high up?

For one thing, the snow blowers are big... and leave a relatively even wall... for another thing, this type of snowbank is probably not just from one snowstorm, and so the driver has the way pretty much laid out for him. Not to mention that melting makes the snow even smoother.

Hell, you can see the snowbank reflected in the bus's windsheild.

http://www.indospectrum.com/travels/crater_lake/files/cd036_03jul04_crater_lake_64.html

Similar sight (not as tall) at Crater Lake.

It's real. I took a picture just like this in northern Tajikistan when I was there in 2003. I'd post picture but I'd have to go home and scan it first. The only road from the south of the country to the north of the country went through this crazy glacier. The crazy thing is that I took a picture just like this in July when the road was open. For about 8 months of the year the north and south of the country are cut off from each other by the glacier (until the new tunnel is built).

I think it's probably real. I've seen similar banks built up from winter-long repeated snowplowing (in Alaska), but not quite that high. On a mountain road, it might get that high.

I've seen snow like that (not that high though) up on Pike's Peak in Colorado. The best I can think to explain it is this: Say it snows 3 feet. A snow plow then comes and plows through the three feet of snow to clear the road. The road now has no snow, both sides of the road now have three feet of snow. Say the next day it snows 2 more feet. The snow plows come and clear the 2 feet off the road, but both sides of the road now have 5 feet of snow.

It looks like ice on the side of a carved out hill to make a road.

Repeat after me, "rotary snow plow". Yes, it gets that deep.

I saw this once in the Japanese News. Fuji News Network I think.

I live near Mt. Baker, in Washington state. This happens almost every year on the road up to the ski area there. I was shocked to think that people really thought this could be a hoax. How funny.

Real... I'm sure topography probably helps with the illusion in some ways though...

This is the photograph of the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route in middle of Japan.
The part called "Yuki no Otani" is located by this road.It is the place of this photograph.The height of the wall of snow this year is a 15m（50ft).
You can see this route's official site.
http://www.alpen-route.com/english/index.html
Have a nice day:-)

"...the valleys echo the shouts of joy."

Professional rotary snowplow with top blower or cutter attachment. No big deal. Just high tech - but not quick or easy work. Most states can only afford a few of these and contract/share them with National Parks. They are difficult to drive and dangerous to operate - particularly if there is any oncoming traffic (now forbidden by code, which makes it difficult to see one in operation). The new units have magnetic sensing to prevent clipping the highway markers (radar is being developed). There are areas that get 50 feet of snow every year that have to open for Memorial weekend (when snowpack is at its deepest) for economic reasons. If you drive Colorado's Million Dollar Highway (Ouray to Silverton) you'll see monuments to the snowplowers killed in the line of duty.

Looks fake to me, the fence posts arent casting any shadow so that seems to indicate the whole picture has been doctored.

it is real, we drove through a similar area in washington state. amazing

Thats easily a hoax. The shadow wouldn't be there with a mound that high.

Hmm, maybe someone is making lots of fakes out there, or it is, as so many have said, possible.
Check out this shot

While on holidays in Swoitserland, its not uncommon to see this kind of pics. During winter this much snow does fall on the different passes, (Sustenpass, Furkapass etc) and indeed they do remove as little snow as needed to get the pass open again in the spring. I`ve seen machines busy removing it. It looks like a big "drill" that "eats" the snow and blows it away to the side. They get that high by creating a sort of stairs system, then go up with the machines and start at the top eating their way lower , layer by layer. If you look on webshots.com you`ll find more pics like this. The Bus is clean because it`s a tourist bus using the road as a simple way to get from A (at one side of the mountain) to B (on the other side of the mountain) Why would it have snow if where it came from it wasn`t snowing? And when its spring, the tourists walking at the sidewalk will not be dressed like its middle of winter because it`ll be around 15-20C

And the shadows story is bs. as you can see by the shortness of the ppls shadows, the sun is high in the sky, probably almost directly over them. Look at the shadow of the bus and you`ll see what I mean.

This is Tateyama Ohtani in northern Japan. The ice wall can get much higher in the winter. This is perhaps a summer shot (yes, even in summer there's snow there). The location is 2,390m above sea level.

Comon, the snow may be real but the pictures is fake. I agree with that snow can get that high but look at the way the people are dressed and that there is now snow melt around. When there are piles of snow and the temperature is above freezing, there is always water run off and in this picture there is none. And the snow in this temperature becomes unstable and could cave in on the bus and people. This picture is NOT REAL.

i have seen roads just like this several times in the middle of summer (4th of july snowboarding trips.) nearly year round examples looking exacly like the image shown can be found simply by visiting bunny flats, @ the 10,000 foot mark on mt. shasta, norcal, by visiting the trail head to the summit of mt. lassen, or by visiting hart lake in the castle craigs wilderness during spring... pretty positive it would be easier to snap a shot rather than hoax it...

definitely japan

This is real. It is northern Japan and the clearing takes some time. When they open the road (same time every year), it is a big event and makes it on the news. This picture actually shows a lower than normal snow wall. It is usually about 20% higher.

The picture seems real to me. I'm staying in Niigata Japan and yes in the countryside the snow is pushed aside and it looks exactly like in the photo after 7 weeks of heavy snow except that it's slightly lower so I believe that picture is not modified.

This picture is real enough, the roadmarks are norwegian and we have several mountainroads where it's common with this amount of snow, and for the ones interessted in the snowshuffle technology I can enlighten you with the fact that snowblower equipment on large trucks want have any problem trowing the snow much higher than this..
we have at least 5 mountainroads that this picture could be taken:

Sognefjell
Haukelifjell
Saltfjellet
Suleskaret fjellovergang
finse fjellovergang

some eksamples:

Found it