Watch Wyoming Crews Cause a Teton Avalanche on Purpose

If you know you have a lot of new snow and wind conditions that make for avalanche danger in the backcountry, what do you do? If you’re this Wyoming crew in the Tetons, you create an avalanche on purpose.

Teton Ski Resort shared this interesting video on their Facebook page over the weekend. They performed some proactive avalanche mitigation and captured video of the moment.

As the Wikipedia page points out, avalanche control is the effort to do a risk assessment and then determine how to cause a controlled avalanche to reduce risk to people and property. It’s done by either detonating an explosive right above the snowpack or using a shell shot out of an air rifle. Sometimes they’ll even be dropped out of helicopters depending on the type of terrain they’re dealing with.

National Geographic shared a video showing the team’s perspective of this fascinating proactive strategy. It’s meant to prevent moments like this that happened recently in the Wyoming backcountry.

The only good avalanche is one you know is coming to help potentially save lives during this dangerous part of the late winter months.