Rogers
Pass Through The Rocky Mountains - Feb, 2007
On location filming an episode
of Angry
Planet featuring avalanches and avalanche
control.
Rogers Pass through the Rocky
Mountains is one of the most avalanche prone ares in the world.
Between the steep mountain slopes runs the Trans-Canada Highway,
the main link through the Rockies. The duty of keeping this road
safe falls on Parks Canada and the Canadian military. They work
together to keep the highway safe with minimal closures for avalanche
control.
The weapon of choice? The 105mm howitzer.
With the highway closed off, it's time for the AVCON soldiers
to pull out the big guns.
Bringing down an avalanche. The incredibly
loud howitzer blasts excess snow down the mountain after a heavy
snowfall overnight. They even let me fire it off.
Time to re-open the highway. It costs an
incredible amount of money to keep this road closed so they try
to keep closures to a minimum.
I travelled up into the mountains with researchers
from the University of Calgary to study the current snow pack.
The only way up was by Snow-Cat
