This summer, Park City Mountain is adding remote avalanche control systems to its winter arsenal.
The Utah Department of Transportation and ski areas around the world use RACS, as they’re known, to trigger avalanches from a distance. That’s so humans can travel through avalanche terrain safely.
“We can detonate these from our office with a button,” Park City ski patrol director Andy VanHouten said. “We're not hiking into terrain, so there's a lot of operational efficiencies.”
According to VanHouten, the remote avalanche systems Park City is installing are intended to get the Quicksilver gondola open more quickly.
Two are going in the Limelite area on the east face of Pinecone Ridge, under the gondola.
Quicksilver is important since it connects Canyons Village to Mountain Village.
“These large shots will expedite opening that lift on windy mornings, snowy mornings, when we don't plan on opening that for skiing, but we want to get that lift open,” VanHouten said.
The ground underneath lifts needs to be avalanche-free to allow for emergency evacuations or maintenance.
The resort hasn’t had RACS before. VanHouten said patrollers will still need to toss some dynamite by hand to open Limelite and its surrounding areas for skiing.
Park City is installing RACS from Alpine Infrastructure that are part of what the company calls its “Boom Whoosh” system.
They’ll each have two tubular chambers, 36 inches in diameter, like twin rocket engines on a miniature lift tower. The fuel — hydrogen and oxygen — will be stored separately in a shelter a safe distance away.
“They get run in through lines that are buried in the ground to these towers,” VanHouten explained. “They mix in the chamber, and then they're detonated there.”
That’s the boom. The twin barrels send out a shockwave: whoosh.
VanHouten didn’t say whether the resort plans to add more RACS, but he said resort leaders will be watching to see how two on Limelite affect operations.
According to Ski Utah, Alta Ski Area, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and Wolf Creek Ski Area utilize similar remote avalanche control systems.
Vail Resorts’ EpicPromise foundation is a financial supporter of KPCW.
