Faux-Scapes. It’s mostly the uncovered and exposed debris that are evidence, that what looks like a mountain range, an alpine setting is in fact a man-made mountain range created by bulldozers all around the Twin Cities.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation has 22 different snow-storage areas in the Twin Cities metro area. The Sears Alps, that’s the steep, 60-foot-tall heap of snow towering over shoppers in the parking lot of the Saint Paul Sears store.The pile is the product of snow plowed from the Sears lot as well as truckloads hauled from state parking lots around the Capitol.

Mount Midway is another massive heap in the parking lot at Midway Stadium where the city of St. Paul has been hauling its snow. An estimated 56,000 tons of snow, mounded up to 70 feet high at one point, covered about 450 of 500 parking spaces.

Once these snow piles, often dirty and black, melt, they will reveal a collection of debris left behind that was scooped up from the roads and lots along with the snow: mufflers, bumpers, hub caps, bottles and cans.