Deseret News, 29 October 2015
Jed Boal
The Utah Department of Transportation and Snowbird managers are hoping a high-tech device out of France will protect a section of state Route 210 and portions of the Snowbird Village. Snowbird bought a French-made O’Bellx exploder for UDOT avalanche forecasters to deploy. The O’Bellx exploder has two containers inside that mixes hydrogen and oxygen to trigger an avalanche under the pod.
Mike DeBernardo, Deseret News
SALT LAKE CITY — It won’t be long until avalanche control is a top priority to keep motorists safe on Little Cottonwood Canyon Road.
The Utah Department of Transportation and Snowbird are hoping a high-tech device from France will help protect a section of state Route 210 and portions of the Snowbird Village.
“We try and lead our field in avalanche control,” said Peter Schory, Snowbird winter operations director.
Snowbird bought a French-made O’Bellx exploder for UDOT avalanche forecasters to deploy. It’s only the third in North America.
The O’Bellx exploder has two containers inside. It mixes hydrogen and oxygen to trigger an avalanche under the pod.
“The gases mix, and there’s an explosion, which forces an explosion, which comes out the bottom,” Schory said.
After a helicopter drops it off, the exploder will sit on top of a tower high on Mount Superior across the road from Snowbird Village. The charge can be trigged remotely from a computer.
“This technology will be used, in my opinion, in many ski resorts in the United States and Canada,” Schory said.
If UDOT did not regularly blast that area, a large slide could hit The Lodge at Snowbird, officials said.
“It’s a very active path. We’re going to shoot that every time, and it’s got a lot of vertical before it comes down on the road,” said UDOT avalanche supervisor Matt McKee.
This system makes the job easier to do regularly and makes forecasters more confident about safeguarding the road.
“This gets me feeling a little bit better about it. If we had 20 more of these, I’d feel a whole lot better,” McKee said.
The other two are used by the Wyoming Department of Transportation near Jackson. They cost around $200,000, including installation. The avalanche supervisor said UDOT will work on getting the funding to have more of them throughout the canyon.
UDOT will use the exploder along with artillery and nine Gazex tubes that have triggered avalanches for years. But the exploder does not need gas lines running up the mountain, or potentially dangerous gun shells.
“We are really confident we’ll get a better blast than we used to with the artillery,” McKee said.