Parking lot sealcoating in Northstar.

What the work involves

A lot gets the same treatment as a driveway on a bigger scale and a tighter schedule. Clean, crack seal, sealcoat, restripe. Most occupied lots get phased in sections so the property keeps working while the sealer cures.

Why it matters at this elevation

The point of sealing at this elevation is water. Every drop that soaks into asphalt is a candidate for freezing, and frozen water expands and breaks pavement from the inside. Sealer keeps most of that water on the surface where it can drain away, and it takes the plow and sun wear that would otherwise land on the asphalt itself.

Above 6,250 feet the winter is longer and the equipment working the pavement is busier. More plow passes mean more surface wear and more chances for a blade to catch an edge. Going into the season with a smooth surface and closed cracks is what separates pavement that holds up here from pavement that does not.

How the job runs

We work to the weather rather than against it. Sealer needs warm dry pavement going down and dry hours behind it, so a job gets moved rather than forced when a storm builds. A rushed application in marginal conditions costs an owner more than the delay ever did.

Northstar pavement specifically

Resort pavement is its own animal. Village and day lots that fill and empty in surges, service and employee areas that see the heaviest equipment, and residential drives around the perimeter. Lot striping matters more here than almost anywhere, because volume days depend on the layout working.

We work Northstar on scheduled association rounds and take individual homeowner jobs alongside them. Northstar California’s residential neighborhoods wrap the resort from the village up through the gated ridgelines — steep association roads, big paver-edged driveways, and serious plow traffic five months a year.

A coating on this pavement is protection against sun and water, not a repair. Where the surface has gone past protection, we say so rather than paint over it.

Northstar sits at roughly 6,330 feet, and the pavement around it behaves accordingly. More on the area on our Northstar service area page. We work the same corridor through Agate Bay, Alpine Meadows, Alpine Peaks, and the pavement guides go deeper on the physics if you want it.

Questions