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Controlling Avalanche Risk with 50 lb bombs

submitted by SFOGuy

1 decade 1 month 4 weeks ago

Ok, sitting there holding onto a lit 50 lbs pre-emptive avalanche bomb in a helicopter.
Sweaty palms material.

Glad someone does this at ski areas and on the slopes that overlook roads and villages (this appears to be at the Lake Susan Jane ski area, which is in Washington)

I know, for areas and places in different positions, some ski patrols use methods as varied as skiing along the top of a ridge and "kicking off" small avalanches to prevent larger, catastrophic ones; some places (South Lake Tahoe, I've seen it), use recoil-less rocket rounds); others use charges manually thrown by ski patrol. But I've never seen anything like this.

edit: changed it to Canada then changed it back after checking-- two things mitigate against it being Canada--- 1) the aircraft has an "N" number, which suggests it's American-registered rather than Canadian and 2) the narrator, in the first minute, talks about how they've prepped 50 lb charges for the Susan Jane area---that's Lake Susan Jane, which is in Washington State...
http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/lake-susan-jane-snowshoe