This study looks to quantify snow conditions along the newly constructed Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway, a gravel highway extending 138km along  the tundra-taiga ecotone in the Mackenzie Delta uplands. The highway was constructed entirely on ice-rich permafrost, and is therefore sensitive to the underlying permafrost conditions, which have been observed rapidly warming in this region. The study analyzes the localized influence of the highway embankment on snow accumulation and the effects of road dust on late season albedo, snowmelt timing and extent. Through a combination of several platforms (Airborne Lidar, Landsat 7+8, and Sentinel-2) the authors adequately apply widely accepted remote sensing methods to undertake a novel analysis of the effect of all-season tundra roads on snow conditions. The manuscript is well written, clear and well structured, and acceptable for publication in TC. 

Minor comments:

• Line 29: The drifting of snow is widely studied in this study region, specifically at TVC. Perhaps the authors should include reference to snow accumulation beyond infrastructure.
• Line 52: What on the influence of shading of tall shrubs on reducing incoming radiation and decreasing the amount of energy used to warm the soil? And what are the effects of soil moisture characteristics on the thermal regimes of the underlying ground cover?  There are numerous studies mentioning this effect. May be worth mentioning to provide the readers with a full understanding of the shrub-snow-soil feedback system.
• Line 64: Wilcox et al. also included mapping ultra-high resolution snowmelt timing using optical drone imagery (and along the proximity of the primary study site for this manuscript).
• Line 94: Add "The" before ITH.
• Line 127: I am curious about the "1.41m" search radius. What is the reasoning behind this specific value?
• Line 134: The absence of in-situ snow depths along this 4km study site of TVC is unfortunate, however the authors have developed a clever method for testing the accuracy of their DTM  snow depths.
• Line 238: What was the average snowfall for these years at this study site? IT would be useful to compare the effects of the highway embankment accumulation zones to the natural snowfall, or snow accumulation of the region
• Figure 4: I like this figure as it provides a clean and easy to follow overview of the snow accumulation patterns based on slope and aspect. However I have two comments. First, the authors need to include a picture of the highway and snow embankments. This reviewer is familiar with the study location, but others may not be. Second, where is this data sourced from? It if ECCC or the nearby TVC research station? The authors need to cite the source.
• Section 3.2: Snow Albedo decrease: This makes sense as it corresponds to the timing of the (enhanced) snowmelt with proximity to the road. I was hoping the study would have talked about increasing albedo over the snow accumulation period. But I have also noticed in similar studies that the dust produced during the winter (during non-construction years) is minimal until the snow begins to melt on the road surface, and dust is free to be redistributed. The authors do a good job in the discussion describing why this may be so (lack of dust availability due to the snow-capping of the road surface).
• Figure 5, a) What are the "seven distances", it was not clear in the panel
• Discussion: The authors did a good job here addressing several key issues discussed in their results section relating to snow clearance practices and snow accumulation, dust availability and albedo, and the effects of the highway orientation on all three snow characteristics discussed with. One question, did the authors look at spatial patterns of snowmelt timing with relation to vegetation cover? Perhaps an area of future study using higher spatial and temporal resolution (such as the drones mentioned early in the methodology section). 
• Line 390: Wilcox et al. (2019) looked at snowmelt patterns across the entire 2016 snowmelt period in the TVC study area with relation to vegetation and permafrost development. This may be a more applicable and recent study to include in the discussion. Could be worth citing here.

Acknowledgements:

• The authors should include reference to their NWT science license number
• What about contributing acknowledgement to the Trail Valley Creek Research Station, the primary study site?

The manuscript is really well written, the figures are of high quality and the topic is interesting and well presented. The methodology is sound and the selected data sources are appropriate for the analysis. This manuscript has the potential to be a good contribution to the literature.

My main comment to the authors would be that the novelty of the work could be improved/highlighted more. Many of the points made in the discussion are well established in previous studies (as pointed out by the authors). However, I do believe that that this manuscript has many unique parts that just could be highlighted a bit more. The following points are suggestions of how this paper could be improved and the full potential of this study could be unlocked. It may not be necessary to do all of these, but including some may improve the uniqueness of this study.

• A unique feature of this study is the high resolution DEM and the derived high resolution snow depth data. I believe it would be a great addition if this would be discussed more, especially analysed in from a spatial point of view. The authors limit themselves with sticking to selected transects.
• In the introduction the authors highlight the snow accumulation leading to water ponding and the importance of this to vegetation (and permafrost conditions). This is neglected in the analysis of the data and the discussion. The authors also introduce the NDWI within the method section. It would be relatively easy to expand the study to include an analysis of water ponding after snow melt along the highway.
• It would be interesting to include a spatial analysis of the albedo. Maybe for selected dates. If no analysis, maybe at least a map.
• The relatively recent creation of the highway allows remote sensing analysis prior to the existence of the infrastructure. The analysis of snow patterns prior and post the existence of the highway is very interesting, what about things like ponding and NDVI in the area of the highway. This is also (partially) mentioned in the introduction but not further explored in the paper.

Minor points:

• Where was the wind data measured. Please include the source in the source in the caption.
• Line 374: “We detected earlier snowmelt at distances up to 600 m from the road depending on the observation date, which is greater than in previous studies”. Bergstedt et al 2022 (cited by the authors) report a distance of up to 5km.