Avalanche Mitigation

[szerizawaescandor]

Wife: "where are you"
Him: "just playing with my life"

[nigellax]

I genuinely love that the core concept of avalanche mitigation is “not if we do it first”.

[Blake_Superior]

Dude just nonchalantly started an avalanche with his left cha cha slide.

[paigeseliger]

Same concept as control burns for forest management! Clear smaller areas safely so if it happens unexpectedly, it will hopefully be less destructive overall. Super neat!

[Fixorfish]

"Kickin Cornice"...as the bartender who got first runs courtesy of the ski patrol snow machine runner, I often got to see this being executed 15-30 minutes before the lifts opened @ 9am. Always thought those of the "kicker squad" were some of the more ballsy guys on the mountain. Absolutely stunning to watch the occasional "ride on down" that sometimes occurred if they got a bit too far out on the cornice....and holding your breath until they emerged safely from the cloud of carsized++ chunks of snow !!
Brave, but also kinda reckless on occasion.
All much better skiers than I.
Ain't Mother Nature grand ?

[Katiee]

Watched a documentary on Netflix recently about the avalanche at some ski resort that killed a lot of the people who do this job. One girl was found alive after 5+ days buried under a collapsed building. The avalanche was so powerful it buried multiple buildings and knocked some completely out. A kid and his father died in the parking lot after the second avalanche. Sad, but very interesting documentary. One of the guys responsible for going out like this and testing quit because of the guilt. He got a lot of blame but ultimately it was due to unpredictable weather, and partly his inexperience. He was in his early 20s, most were. That guy changed how to do these tests and now everyone does his method. He worked for years to come up with better ways because of what happened. So he’s saved a lot of lives.

[mileshorsley]

“Yo bro I’m bored, see those kids down there?”

[KiddyNotterud]

Professional avalanche mitigation. Well done 😮❤

[gshalabama]

Your taking all the fun out of it.
Russian Ski Roulette

[SquashyNO.]

Man, right on the edge like that, dude is really asking for it.

[Gioart]

"We're gonna mitigate avalanches!"
-"and how do you suggest we do that?"
"Well. We push the snow down the hill all at once so it won't be an avalanche!"
-"BRILLIANT!"

[thecommenter]

I used to start avalanches on my snowmobile as a young man, then my dad dug me out of one and i no longer do that😂😂😂

[anthonymontgomery]

Thank God every day you’re alive! 🙏🏻😇🙏🏻

[derekallen]

Somewhere down the mountain is a cartoon village about to get smoked by a giant snowball.

[NichollBros]

The squirrels gathering nuts at the bottom of the trees on a calm, sunny day 😨

[_Harvestman_]

It takes experience and finesse to not trigger an avalance outright doing that, and to even know to look for that potential risk in the first place. Nice

[stevecraig-ugec]

That's awesome. Even if you don't know how to ski, you just stand there, and the mountain skis for you.

[ЕгорШляпин-уу]

стрёмненько, хорошо что в таких местаю система радио маячков уже сегодня работает очень эффективно

[dinovaught]

An avalanche can be initiated by the simple act of inserting a ski pole into the snow, particularly when the snowpack contains a weak layer. This minor disturbance might apply just enough additional stress to fracture this weak layer. When the fracture occurs, it can cause the snow layer above it to slide off like a sheet. This initial slide can then destabilize the surrounding snow, leading to a more significant and fast-moving avalanche. The process highlights the critical balance within the snowpack, where a small action can trigger a large-scale movement, especially under conditions where the snow layers are already predisposed to sliding due to factors like their composition, the slope's steepness, and current weather conditions.

[marcuscorrenti]

Took a hiking trip in 19 for 3 months, last week was snow camping/backcountry skiing for 2 weeks in the Absarokas, we got 5 feet of snow while out there, and as we were getting ready to go over the pass, everyone got up there before me and was waiting since it was all pretty fresh powder on thin ice, and I’m a big dude, so I brought the heaviest pack with food and stuff, and the moment I got up there, the entire top of the mountain sunk two inches as the layer collapsed, no avalanche, but plenty of puckered buttcheeks, we decided to not do the pass and went down a safer way for obvious reasons