Steve Camp likes winter. Falling temperatures represent ice fishing, snowmobiling and money in his pocket.

“I like this,” said Camp on Friday, driving his 2019 GMC Denali plow truck south through St. Paul into Highland Park for what will probably be his 62nd driveway-clearing operation of the week.

Camp, who has owned SC Creative Landscaping in Maple Grove for 25 years, signed up in 2019 for a side gig with PlowzAndMowz.com, a Latest York-based, on-demand property management service that describes itself because the Uber of snow plowing, lawn care and other home upkeep. The app indicates that in lower than 4 years, he’s plowed 668 driveways and counting.

He believes it.

The St. Paul portion of his Friday morning begins with a hunt for diesel gas, which he finds surprisingly hard to locate in town. Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant, is little help identifying which gas stations carry it, and three in a row don’t. At a fourth stop, the diesel comes out in a slow trickle. Most other gas stations won’t pick up the phone.

“Gas is the most important expense,” said Camp, who sometimes gets 14 miles to the gallon. “There’s breakdowns, repairs, but gas often takes over.”

Still, his 2019 truck has treated him well to date. “I’m too old for breakdowns,” quipped Camp. “You spend a lot time in them, it’s nice to have something durable and reliable.”

Plowing, shoveling

The multi-phase winter storm that blew through the Twin Cities Tuesday through Thursday brought with it greater than a foot of snow in St. Paul, Minneapolis and on the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, and as many as 20 inches in Apple Valley. Overall, it wasn’t as severe as most forecasts predicted, and to Camp’s delight, the snow was much lighter, fluffier and easier to clear than the heavy deluge that landed around Christmas.

No such challenges faced Camp on Friday. His first stop in St. Paul is a house on Hampshire Avenue where snow drifts have piled some heaps into higher than waist-high mounds.

The plowing itself is nothing short of anti-climatic, a fast forward and reverse, executed with almost seesaw-like repetition until the driveway snow has been shoved onto the ample yard. “Push snow left side,” reads the special instructions on his app.

A couple of steps remain. Camp gets out of his vehicle to shovel the walk, an add-on service available, and he later drives up and down the driveway along with his truck shovel near to the bottom, eliminating the last layer of snowfall. Then it’s time to take photos and upload them, video evidence that the work is completed.

Unless it’s around Christmastime, he may never meet the client. Christmas sometimes means a plate of cookies.

Which city handled the snowstorm higher — St. Paul or Minneapolis?

Now it’s time to reply a timeless query — which city handles municipal snow plowing higher, St. Paul or Minneapolis?

Typically, he’d must say St. Paul.

“I’d say St. Paul pulled off the storm higher this time. They got it together. Minneapolis, not so good,” Camp said. “Minneapolis is pretty rough down there. … They’re stuck.”

RELATED: Snow Angels group connects St. Paul shovels with sidewalks in need

Wills Mahoney, an information technology skilled who founded PlowzAndMowz.com in 2014 in Syracuse, Latest York, said the Twin Cities has grown to be the biggest of his 65 markets, which is saying lots. His native Syracuse, in any case, prides itself on competing with Buffalo, Latest York, for heavy snowfalls.

“Immediately we’ve got 400 trucks energetic within the Minneapolis area, in just a little bit higher than 40-mile radius,” Mahoney said. “It’s a powerful marketplace for us. We’ve just seen incredible growth.”

Prices for the on-demand service vary with location, the sort and size of the project, how quickly it must be done and add-ons like shoveling and salting, but plowing a typical Twin Cities driveway of any length will likely average $90. Additional “white glove” treatment involves cleansing off a automobile entirely, not every plow driver’s favored activity, but still a preferred sell with the disabled.

For just a few hours Wednesday night, bookings within the Twin Cities rolled in every seven seconds, Mahoney said. On Thursday morning, he said, they landed even faster.