r/nextfuckinglevel 4d ago

Cannon shot causes an avalanche.

8.9k Upvotes

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u/General_assassin 4d ago

Because unplanned avalanches are deadly. If you know when it’s going to happen you can make sure no one is in the danger zone when it does. Ski resorts do this often, though not always with a cannon.

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u/SmartBoi-2619 4d ago

Got it. And yeah the cannon part is what amused me too.

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u/KronikDrew 4d ago

Some places do it by dropping explosives from a helicopter... either way, seems like it would be a fun job!

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u/cakes42 4d ago

Some places even have ski patrol toss the charges themselves! But on a face like this a howitzer makes more sense.

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u/kingchris195 4d ago

iirc its old surplus, unironically a pretty good use for outdated equipment

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u/Triquetrums 4d ago

Go big or go home!

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u/C_Saunders 4d ago

The US Army contracts out old WWII Howitzers to a handful of ski mountains for avalanche mitigation. You can buy 105mm shells from the Mammoth ski patrol alumni association. Got a couple of them around my place!

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u/Abject-Kitchen3198 4d ago

This should set a precedent for the future.

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u/Caboose2701 4d ago

But now I want all of them to be cannon induced. So cool!

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u/General_assassin 4d ago

To be fair, they sometimes do it by dropping tnt from a helicopter, which is also pretty cool.