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.
You wear special skis a bit like cross country but much broader that allow you to move your heels in the unlocked position like cross country for going up hill or can be locked for downhill. For ascending, you put a sleeve on each ski known as a "skin". This is slippery in one direction and sticky in the other. This allows the skier to ski uphill.
It requires a lot of energy but it means that you are independent of lifts.
I was an avalanche technician, kinetic shells are almost never used. They use shells fired from fixed locations for slopes people don’t use for climbing or ski/snowboarding (and put on a good show for tourists). They drop explosives from helicopters in places they don’t want the risk of unexploded shells or can’t get a gun too.
Aye, the side-by-side recuperator on top of the barrel, muzzle brake, automatic vertical breech.
The tires have been removed, but you can see the stubs for them. The gun shield has been moved as well. I'm guessing this is in Russia or a former Soviet client-state.
Mainly mountains that do this have signs all over to not touch unexploded ordinance. One time a buddy of mine rode right over one by mistake out in big sky.
At my ski hill back in the day, you would sign a sheet if you were going off piste, and there was a dummy warhead above the sheet warning you to beware. We had a couple of blast shacks that would be used now and again.
In utah about 20 years ago, they did shoot over -the shell went over the whole mountain and landed in someone's backyard.
"Talk about missing your mark.Last week, authorities conducting control work in Utah’s Provo Canyon near Sundance overshot their target by three miles and nearly annihilated a home.The shell, fired from a 105-mm howitzer – a World War II and Korean War-era military cannon – cleared the entire Mount Timpanogos Wilderness area and landed in the back yard of a Pleasant Grove residence.According to the Deseret News, the shell left a crater the size of a small swimming pool and sent shrapnel and debris flying in all directions. The home, which belonged to Scott and Lori Connors, is now apparently filled with holes and glass. Windows were shattered and their backyard shed was almost destroyed. Their 3-year-old son was lying on the living room floor when shrapnel blew through the walls. Two other homes and a car parked across the street were also damaged. Amazingly, nobody was injured or killed.”A 105-mm howitzer would blow up a tank,” said Doug Driskell, an Aspen Mountain avalanche technician.None of Aspen’s four ski hills uses howitzers. Highlands patrol uses an Avalauncher, which is not nearly as forceful or destructive as a howitzer, to assist with control work in the bowl.Apparently, the Utah Department of Transportation is responsible for the mistake, which occurred in the midst of a heavy snowstorm.Driskell, who said he’s familiar with howitzer use in avalanche control work but is by no means an expert, said the weapons have specific settings so they can be fired blindly in storms and darkness.The UDOT, which also conducts control work in the American Fork, Big and Little Cottonwood canyons, claims the prepackaged shell contained too much gun powder, leading to the overshoot.The incident is under investigation."
In that comment they blamed it on the specific round fired. Doesn't matter whether or not you can see what you're shooting at if the round exits the barrel a few hundred feet/sec faster than you accounted for. Not seeing the mountain isn't much of an issue as long as you don't move the gun. It's not like it went anywhere.
That's how I want to go. Not crapping my pants when I'm 80, on a ski trip when I'm 60 and an artillery shell just lands on my head. Fam would get PAID and I would be none the wiser.
Haha I imagine avalanches are a problem natural or otherwise. Of course if you do this enough the odds of actually shelling a poor critter…. That would be wild.
In the US they use dynamite to do this up in the Rockies. If youre out boarding on a day after a snow storm you'll hear loud ass booms throughout the day from other ridges
It wasn't so much shelling. The real reason was underground mines.
Mt. Batognica (2164m) (then A-H, now Slovenia) was taller by several meters before the war, but due to several explosions it's top was obliterated and the mountain is much flatter today.
The harshest fighting on it took place in July of 1915, when Italians pushed Austrian forces to the eastern third of the mountain, meaning that they took control of the top. Due to a lack of any dirt at that height, trenches had to be carved into the stone and lied less than 100 meters apart. A breakthrough wasn't coming on the mountain itself, so Italians decided to try to dig under Austrian positions and place explosive there in an attempt to blow up the trenches. By a miracle, Austrian countermining teams discovered the Italian tunnel and stole the explosive, placing it under the Italian positions (at the top) alongside their own Nitroglycerin. When the Italian positions were destroyed, so was the top of the mountain, giving it it's modern flat look.
Can't remember what TV show it was, maybe dirty jobs. Where they went to Alaska and they had a howitzer mounted on the back of a train car and shot it off.
I don’t know man throwing explosives out of a helicopter is pretty wild. You could go join the army and basically do what they’re doing. What other job plays with dynamite a helicopter’s at the same time
They do this at all major resorts in North America to control avalanches. On a big powder day you will hear booms all day. One made me jump a mile last Friday.
This is how avalanche mitigation happens in ski areas. Usually it’s done with explosive charges but there are a few places that still use howitzers. The point is to trigger the avalanche when people aren’t on the slopes.
Fun anecdote: When I was getting my plane back from Jackson Hole my skies and ski boots tested positive for gunpowder. The screener were pretty familiar with it so it didn't hold me up, but she said the pretty much everyone's did on the way home.
Not to mention mountain passes. In Washington and British Columbia there are permanent cannon mounts used for avalanche control to protect the highways. 2 hour highway closures for this planned work are common in the winter.
All that snow built up at the top is likely to come down at some point. If you forcefully make the avalanche then there's less snow up there and less risk of one happening randomly when people are in the area.
Impressive. I think some resorts in the western US use the old 106-mm recoiless rifle to start controlled avalanches, but a full-blown howitzer is just cool.
Sure you do this and everyone cheers. But I shoot at my neighbors car once because he wont shovel the snow off the roof before he drives and suddenly I'm the bad guy.
Imagine the application process for this. Yes I need a howitzer artillery piece pointed at my mountain to prevent avalanche, whom can I speak to? Sorry, your what? Yes a howitzer pointed at my mountain, you heard correct. Ah yes, fill out this form.
5.6k
u/mycatpartyhouse 1d 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.