Inside the Wild World of Utah’s Finest Avalanche-Fighters

It was April 3, the third day of a five-day storm that eventually dumped 65 inches of snow on Alta Ski Area, high in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, and its neighboring Snowbird Mountain Resort, pushing an already record snowfall well above 800 inches for the season. (The resorts average 500 inches a year.) The onslaught — and the associated avalanche danger — forced the Utah Department of Transportation to close Route 210, which runs up Little Cottonwood Canyon and is the only winter road to and from Alta and Snowbird.

Little Cottonwood Canyon is a steep, dead-end, glacially-carved canyon that rises abruptly from 5,000 feet of elevation in Salt Lake Valley to peaks that top out over 11,000 feet. Route 210, a two-lane road, traverses 64 known avalanche pathways in eight miles, which maybe wouldn’t be too big a deal if it didn’t snow so damn much. But because it does, Route 210 is the most dangerous road in the country, per an algorithm known as the Avalanche Hazard Index.

On April 4, with not only Route 210 but also Alta and Snowbird resorts closed due to the blizzard, two massive avalanches roared out of Tanner’s Slide Path, detonating aspen groves and enveloping the road, along with one of UDOT’s snowplows. That carnage alone would take at least a day to clear, meaning thecountry clubmembership could sustain…if only conditions allowed the resorts to reopen.

We spoke to workers from Alta, Snowbird and UDOT who reflect back on this day and talk about avalanche mitigation gear including munitions, which they routinely drop and fire onto mountainsides to induce slides before people are in harm’s way.