Winter prep,
done before the first storm.

No deep freeze needed: winter rain finds every unsealed crack, saturates the base, and December-through-March traffic pumps that water like a piston. Add the foothills' genuine freeze-thaw nights (Coarsegold to Shaver Lake), where water in cracks expands 9% overnight, and fall prep stops being optional the farther up the grade you live.

1. Crack-seal everything wider than a pencil — the single highest-value item, ideally October–November while surfaces are warm and dry. 2. Patch failures now: a soft spot that limps through summer collapses in February. 3. Clear the water paths — leaves in swales and gutters turn drainage design into pond design. 4. Check ponding after the first light rain and note birdbaths for spring leveling. 5. Skip late-season sealcoat — below ~50° it cures badly; that item belongs in spring or fall's warm half.

Above the frost line: finish all crack work before the first hard freeze, confirm culverts and cross-drains are open (a blocked culvert under a mountain driveway is a washout waiting for one storm), and plan around snow — plow blades find every raised edge, so patches should sit flush by November.

Sealcoating, striping, and any repaving that isn't an emergency — all want warm, dry cure windows. The honest winter posture: seal the water out in fall, watch in winter, resurface in spring. If a failure does open up mid-winter, a cold-patch stopgap plus a scheduled spring hot repair is the sane sequence — and we answer the phone year-round: (559) 442-4105.