The contractor that maintains most of the Coquihalla Highway has added new gear ahead of the winter.

Yellowhead Road and Bridge general manager Dave Duncan says the company has added two plow trucks and two tow plows. The fleet now has 114 pieces of heavy equipment.

YRBB has also hired a dozen new winter drivers in time for November.

Duncan also reflected on the first major snow event of the season, last week. The Coquihalla was closed for about five hours on Friday morning because of spun-out semi trucks at Larson Hill, according to DriveBC.

“We only have a couple of spots on the freeway system where there are chain-up flashing lights there. And where those lights were on, I think truckers were respecting it. And the other hills where they were applying judgement, there’s a few that got stuck there, and hopefully next time they’ll see the conditions and chain up in advance.”

He points out chemicals don’t work to melt ice when roads get too cold, and says temperatures reached as low as minus-15 on highway stretches of the Coquihalla this weekend.

“You’ve got a bare and black load, and with one small centimetre of snow and with some of those heavy loads that’s enough to get truckers sometimes spun out.”

YRB maintains the Coquihalla from Lac Le Jeune near Kamloops to the Great Bear Snowshed. It also looks after the Okanagan Connector from Merritt to the Elkhart Road exit, and highways through Logan Lake, Lytton and Spences Bridge. In total, it maintains 1,400 kilometres of roads, including 750 km of highways.

On Friday, the Coquihalla saw a stunning 40 centimetres of snow fall near the Surrey Lake Summit north of Merritt, when a snowfall warning was in place for much of the southern Interior.

(Photo: Yellowhead Road and Bridge)