power rangers

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The harsh winter months coupled with the tough terrain of southeast Idaho create a difficult work environment for the crews of Rocky Mountain Power Co. It's a combination that requires some special equipment, namely snowmobiles.

Rocky Mountain Power Co. (RMPC) provides service to about 100,000 people, which account for more than 28,000 separate facilities, be they houses, businesses, schools, etc. That means crews need to maintain about 2,000 miles of power lines in a 9,000-square-mile area daily.

Many of these lines are well off the beaten path in rugged rural areas, impassable during winter. That's why RMPC uses snowmobiles and snow cats to find problems and maintain the miles and miles of power lines. The linemen (and I'm one of them), based out of Rexburg, Idaho, rely on these machines to keep their customers with power.

That could change as Tony Perkins, area engineer at the Rexburg office, notes, "Our present policy is to build new power lines next to roads where we can maintain them. However, we still have many miles of existing overhead transmission lines that don't follow any roads at all. They run cross-country through remote areas where we can't even see the lines from roadways. We rely on snowmobiles to patrol and maintain our system during the winter months.

"Depending on the winter or the severity of the storm, almost all of the rural distribution system roadways become impassable by over-the-road vehicles until the storm clears," he adds.

Working sleds
It's out in those rural areas, during the worst weather, that snowmobiles play the most important roll in maintaining the electrical network. Rocky Mountain Power linemen currently rely on two Arctic Cat M6 snowmobiles with 141-inch tracks, along with a Bombardier Trooper snow cat powered by a Perkins 4-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine.

Some folks wonder why we use mountain instead of utility sleds for this strenuous work. Tony Nielsen operation's manager explains, "The topography of this area is very mountainous, which makes it difficult to reach these power lines. We have found that mountain sleds work the best."

The main use of these mountain sleds is to patrol the power lines looking for trouble spots. After a problem is located, the lineman calls in crews with additional equipment, including the bigger snow cat. However, if the problem is minor, material and climbing tools are hauled in on the snowmobiles and repairs are made on the spot, no matter the weather.

Back in January, 2005, a severe storm left homes in Medicine Lodge, a small community near the Idaho-Montana border, without power. A crew of four was dispatched about 4 p.m. on a Friday to make the 70-mile trip with an LMC snow cat and then patrol the 15 miles of line that head cross-country through steep terrain.

The biggest problem was a broken conductor down in a canyon. The crew worked through the night, and Saturday afternoon two additional linemen were sent aboard rental sleds. By about 10 that night, after 30 hours of wading through waist deep snow, climbing poles and hoisting 2,000-feet of cable across the canyon, the crews restored power.

Then the real story began. The two on snowmobiles headed back to the trucks and the others loaded into the snow cat for the ride back when a water pump died on that vehicle. Four wet linemen who had been working 41 hours straight were stranded with temps in the single digits. The remaining Rexburg crews (including me) in another snow cat were 60 miles away in rural Kilgore, Idaho, repairing 27 downed poles. No way we could rescue the other crew in time.

Luckily the crews are in constant radio contact, and Dubois, Idaho, local agent, Richard Nelson, called Marty Owens, a Dubois search and rescue team member. They jumped on Marty's personal sleds and hooked up with the two linemen on the rentals and rescued the stranded linemen. By 2:30 a.m. Sunday, everyone was back to the trucks safe and at least starting to warm up.

Snowmobiles were essential in that case with both the repair and the rescue.

Nelson says, "Even though the snow cat and snowmobiles may look like extravagant machines, it's a lot more work (for the linemen) because they do not have their normal equipment." He recalls several times while patrolling lines during storms that the only way you could navigate was to try to follow the lines from pole to pole.

Safety is always a concern for the men who patrol the power lines on sleds. They always travel in pairs and log in with Salt Lake Dispatch before departure with a planned destination route and return time. (Not a bad idea for any snowmobiler to log in with someone and provide the same info.)

Besides a full mountain snowsuit and helmet, each lineman also carries a survival pack, two-way radio, cell phone and avalanche beacon.

Training
Safety training is paramount for all linemen in Rexburg. Each receives avalanche and beacon training, and training on the use of the snow cat and the snowmobiles.

According to Nelson, in the winter of 2005-'06 the sleds logged over 1,000 miles. But last winter, the sleds were used much less due to a lack of snow. Although the snow cat went out several times last season, when it comes to patrolling lines, snowmobiles cover a lot of miles in a shorter amount of time. This speeds up and improves the power service's restoration efforts.

These guys have plenty of war stories from being out in these remote areas, but all are extremely proud of the tough winter job they do to keep the lights on.

Editor's note: AmSnow thanks all the crews who work through harsh weather and use whatever means possible to keep the power on. These often are unseen, or overlooked, heroes.