​

Some deep level of hell probably looks and functions like an American shopping centre parking lot. There might be entire countries that are smaller and less frustrating to navigate than some of these expansive suburban consumer traps. Living in America, I came to understand that I possess neither the necessary skill nor patience to escape one of these hell-mazes on a busy shopping day without leaving my mind among the parades of obscenely oversized SUV’s so I resolved to shop at off-hours when possible. It was one crisp early winter morning in an empty Denver superstore lot where I first paid due attention to the glorious snowy mountains produced by overnight plowing. 

 

Given the extensive footprint of some of these lots, the plowed snow piles can be large enough to dwarf most vehicles. The piles often melt quickly in Colorado, whereas they can last for months in northern states. Either way, they conform to natural erosion, expansion, contraction, melting, and refreezing processes as pristine snow falls, oily sludge is splashed, and garbage is accreted.