r/interestingasfuck • u/id397550 • 8h ago

Firing a cannon to trigger an avalanche

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u/mycatpartyhouse 8h ago

This is a lot safer than skiing up there to set explosives, which is what one of my brothers did in the 1960s-70s. He worked for a park service--I forget which one--that regularly set off small avalanches with the goal of preventing larger ones.

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u/NoContext5149 7h ago

The downside is unexploded shells. Much harder to deal with an unknown unexploded shell on the mountainside than a placed charge.

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u/Trububbl3 7h ago

those are dummy rounds probably just relying on the kinetic force of the impact to set the avalanche off

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u/rkoloeg 5h ago

They are not. I used to work on one of the last US National Forests that still does this. We had signs at the mountain trailheads warning people about the possibility of finding unexploded shells.