Gimme Back My Gun!

[crabcake]

Army Wants Howitzers Back From Ski Areas

RENO, Nev. - The U.S. military is demanding the return of five howitzers that two Sierra Nevada ski resorts use to prevent avalanches, saying it needs the guns for the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Alpine Meadows and Mammoth Mountain received the artillery pieces on loan from the Army and began using them last year to fire rounds into mountainsides and knock snow loose.

I'm no snow-bunny, but isn't mass amounts of snow falling down a mountain an "avalanche"?

 

[jazz lady]

Basically they're doing controlled avalanches. A small, controlled one is much better than a big, out of control one.

 

[SamSpade]

Originally posted by jazz lady
Basically they're doing controlled avalanches. A small, controlled one is much better than a big, out of control one.

Yep - there's tons of folks out there whose job is triggering small avalanches. In some places, they're done regularly.