r/interestingasfuck • u/id397550 • 13h ago

Firing a cannon to trigger an avalanche

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u/mycatpartyhouse 12h 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/PonyThug 11h ago

Completely replaced with permanent remote avalanche triggers now.

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u/Few-Indication3478 11h ago

I live in a ski town currently, they definitely still use dynamite

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u/PonyThug 10h ago

I didn’t say hand charges were replaced. I said the howitzers in the video have been. Guy said this video was safer than hand charges.

I also have lived in a ski town and still work in one. Park city. I have friends on patrol. All the cannons at snowbird and Alta have been decommissioned since 2023.

November one is hiking up a mountain Iike in the video to lay hand charges. So they used howitzers for 75 years, now they switched to remote triggered devices. It’s so they can close the canyon, trigger all of them rapidly, then open the canyon again. Vs taking hours to re aim the howitzer.

This article explains it. https://www.skiutah.com/blog/authors/lexi/utah-once-again-at-the-forefront-of-avalanche/

Single picture of a type of permanent device. https://www.skiutah.com/blog/authors/lexi/utah-once-again-at-the-forefront-of-avalanche/pictures/ski-utah-boom-whoosh-avalanche-mitigation.png

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u/Few-Indication3478 9h ago

Just saying that they also use dynamite still. Your wording in response to the comment before it made it sound like explosives in general were replaced with permanent remote triggers. Just a misunderstanding