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Mystery Tool Used by Yellowstone Workers To Clear Seven Feet of Snow From a Roof in Chunks

Whatever this tool is, their slice, block and move technique is clever and efficient

By Rain Noe - January 29, 2019

in Tools & Craft

Park employees at Yellowstone have an interesting system for clearing massive amounts of snow--in this case, seven feet's worth--from the roof of their structures. Here's what visitor Kerry Countryman observed taking place on the roof of the Canyon Village General Store:

Shot by Kerry Countryman

What's not shown, nor explained, is how they managed to get those perfect vertical cuts in the first place. We had to know, so we poked around and found another video of Yellowstone's workers clearing a roof in 2015:

Shot by Jonathan Hoag

By scrubbing through the footage and freeze-framing, we can see that the workers are using an enormous slicing tool:

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This explains the staircase pattern of the blocks. To create each block, the worker needs to be able to make two slices at 90 degrees (90 degrees in plan view, that is) to each other. Then the other worker can slide the block out. I call this clever.

Any idea what the heck that tool is?

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Robert Wilkey

5 years ago

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Pretty sure that's Cloud's Buster Sword for Final Fantasy VII

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Brad Johnson

5 years ago

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It's a modified 2-man timber saw. He fitted a shovel handle to one end, and reshaped the other end so it could slice through the snow.

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Alex Bakker

5 years ago

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You can buy little versions of that saw called "Snow saws" for building Igloos in the backcountry or examining snow layers for evaluating avalanche risk. MSR, Black Diamond, etc make these.

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Donald Jones

5 years ago

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Who's way? Norway! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RZVTMqZP_o

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