A lot of buyers ask about January while the leaves are still on the trees. Who plows, and am I going to be stuck in my driveway with a coffee and a grudge? Fair questions in a county where people compare snowfall totals the way other places compare golf scores.
Most of the answers are written down somewhere official.
How much snow Traverse City gets
The National Weather Service office in Gaylord publishes a winter climate summary. For December 2025 through February 2026, it recorded 99.0 inches of snow at Traverse City, 20.7 inches over the usual figure for those three months. The average temperature for the stretch was 23.6 degrees, and the coldest reading was 5 below zero, on January 25 and again on February 1, 2026.
The same office keeps a seasonal snow table, and the Traverse City record on it is 191.5 inches, set in 1995-96. People around here bring that number up every winter, usually people who didn't shovel it.
I don't know what this winter will bring. Nobody does, including the guy at the hardware store with a pallet of ice melt to move.
The county's three tiers
The Grand Traverse County Road Commission's winter FAQ spells out the order it plows in. First priority is state trunklines, emergency routes and primary local roads. Other paved local roads come second, and subdivisions and gravel roads are third. Crews won't move down a tier until the one above it is clear, and if it starts snowing again they may go back up. After a major storm or back-to-back storms, the FAQ says, subdivision and gravel roads may not be cleared for several days.
I can't tell you which tier Hammond Road or Three Mile falls in, and I'd rather not guess. The Road Commission office on LaFranier Road is open Monday through Friday, 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and they're the ones to ask.
Two smaller things from that FAQ. If a county plow hits your mailbox, the Road Commission offers a gift card toward replacement materials, but not for damage from snow and ice thrown by the plow. And because some snow always lands at the ends of driveways, they suggest shoveling to the right side of yours.
Who clears what inside Alta Vista
The county FAQ also says private roads don't get county winter maintenance. Alta Vista's streets are the community's to maintain, and per the amenities page, snow removal in the common areas is on the community's side of the list, along with the streets, the streetlights and the Lodge. Site rent for new buyers, $650 a month, pays for that side.
Your own driveway, porch, deck and sidewalk are yours to clear, or you can pay the community's contractor to do it. The monthly cost page sets that split next to what a typical nearby condo association handles, because it's one of the bigger differences between the two.
The mail sits in a covered pavilion, so nobody digs a mailbox out of a snowbank. A covered mailbox is the most underrated amenity in northern Michigan. The fitness room in the Lodge is open year round, and the pool cover goes on in the fall and stays on until the season opens again.
Where the snow pile is allowed to go
Michigan has a law about this. MCL 257.677a makes it a civil infraction to push snow, ice or slush onto or across a roadway or its shoulder in a way that blocks a driver's line of sight, and another part of the same section bars depositing it on any roadway or highway at all. The fine is up to $100. Government employees doing their jobs aren't covered, so the county plow is off the hook.
That mostly matters if you live on a public road or hire someone with a plow blade. Inside the community, ask the office where piles go. Clinton Herigstad runs it, and his number is (231) 421-7328.
When you want to be out in it
East of here is the Vasa Pathway, with its trailhead at 4450 Bartlett Road in Williamsburg. The loops run 3K, 5K, 10K and 25K, and TART Trails grooms them under an agreement with the Michigan DNR and Grand Traverse County. There's also a snowshoe trail of about 2.5 miles in three stacked loops, and leashed dogs are welcome on it.
But check before you load the car. A thaw can wreck a groomed trail fast, and TART's winter grooming page links to its grooming reports. The drive times from Alta Vista to the airport, downtown and the state park beach are on the location page.
Checked against the sources linked above in November 2026.
If you want to see it in person, text Taylor at (231) 360-1510 or schedule a tour.
