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- [00:00]
Ben Stiller
This cold and flu season, Instacart is here to help deliver all your sick day essentials. Whether you're in prevention mode and need vitamins, hand sanitizer and that lemon tea your Nana swears by, or you're in healing mode and need medicine, soup and a lot more tissues. Simply download the Instacart app to get sick day supplies that reinvigorate or relieve. Delivered in as fast as 30 minutes plus enjoy. Zero delivery fees on your first three orders. Excludes restaurant orders, service fees and terms apply.
- [00:27]
Adam Scott
Where'd you get those shoes? Easy. They're from dsw. Because DSW has the exact right shoes for whatever you're into right now. You know, like the sneakers that make office hours feel like happy hour, the boots that turn grocery aisles into runways, and all the styles that show off the many sides of you, from daydreamer to multitasker and everything in between. Because you do it all in really great shoes. Find a shoe for every you at your DSW store or dsw.com the History.
- [00:57]
Sally Helm
Channel original podcast history this week, January 15, 1939 I'm Sally Helm. It's finally moving the first operational ski lift in the state of Utah. It was supposed to open weeks ago, but there were problems with the pulleys and the motors and the brakes. This lift is actually an old piece of mining equipment. It used to transport silver ore, but now it's transporting skiers paying 25 cents each to hop into a red metal chair and make their way up the mountain. At this time, 1939, recreational skiing is just taking off, and the town of Alta, Utah, wants to be at its center. Makes sense. The mining boom is over and the town needs a new industry in order to survive. Plus, in a single season, they can get up to 900 inches of snow. Today is opening day and things are going well, a reporter writes. At 3pm all was serene. The nursery slope on the north side of the basin was crowded with skiers of all ages. The Forest Service shelter was filled to capacity with parka clad, hot dog and hamburger seekers. But then, just 10 minutes later, a storm moves in. Blinding gusts of snow billow down the sides of this mountain. The weather here can change on a dime, and that heavy load of snow can become extremely dangerous. And that is the way in which it makes no sense at all to put a ski resort right here in Alta, Utah. It has long been known as one of the most dangerous places in this region because it is right in the heart of avalanche country. As of this moment, while the Skiers grab their hamburgers while the new red chairs swing beneath the lift. No one has been able to tame this threat. But in order to harness the potential of this new growing industry, Alta is going to try pulling out all the stops to control the immense deadly force of of the avalanche. Today, pioneering winter safety in Utah. How did the Alta ski area become the testing ground for all things avalanche control? And how did rangers find their answer to the avalanche in a deadly weapon of war?
- [03:58]
Craig Gordon
So it's a new year, 2025, and you're thinking, how am I going to make this year different? How am I going to build something for my but where do I start? Shopify is how you're gonna make it happen. And here's how. Shopify makes it simple to create your brand, open for business and get your first sale. The best time to start your new business is right now. Get your store up and running easily with thousands of customizable templates. No coding or design skills required. All you need to do is drag and drop. Their powerful social media tools let you connect all your channels and create shoppable posts and help you sell everywhere people scroll. What happens if you don't act now? Will you regret it? What if someone be you to the idea? Don't kick yourself when you hear this again in a year because you didn't do anything. Now with Shopify, your first sale is closer than you think. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com Odyssey podcast all lowercase go to shopify.com Odyssey podcast to start selling with Shopify today. Shopify.com Odyssey podcast hey, I'm Ben Stiller.
- [05:01]
Ben Stiller
I'm Adam Scott and we make a TV show called Severance. On January 17th, Severance is back for season two on Apple T and we can't wait for you guys to see it. And before the premiere, Ben and I are going to be binging season one and putting out daily recap podcasts. Yep, each weekday beginning January 7th, we'll.
- [05:20]
Sally Helm
Be dropping an episode featuring exclusive behind.
- [05:22]
Ben Stiller
The scenes tidbits and brilliant insights from our cast and crew and us. Patricia Arquette, Britt Lauer, Zach Cherry, John Turturro, the list goes on. All your favorite Lumen employees, their friends.
- [05:35]
Sally Helm
Families, enemies in your feed every single weekday.
- [05:38]
Ben Stiller
And here's the best part. After that, we're gonna keep going. Tune in weekly as we recap every episode of season two. The podcast drops on the same day the episode comes out. It's the Severance Podcast with Ben and Adam on Apple Podcasts the Odyssey app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [06:00]
Adam Scott
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- [06:31]
Sally Helm
We'Re gonna start this story with a simple question. What is an avalanche in the Wasatch Mountains outside Salt Lake City? The snowpack can be more than 240 inches thick. Imagine it like a layer cake. Each layer is snow from a different storm. We heard about it from Craig Gordon, who's a forecaster for the U.S. forest Service's Utah Avalanche Center.
- [06:57]
Jonathan Morgan
Storms come in with different amounts of wind and snow density or water content, and each storm has its own individual characteristic and personality.
- [07:10]
Sally Helm
You have all these distinct layers, or slabs on top of each other, and those differences create the danger. Some slabs will be weaker than others.
- [07:22]
Jonathan Morgan
Once we start to develop this cohesive piece of snow on top of a weak layer, we know it's going to be game on.
- [07:30]
Sally Helm
That weak layer of snow is liable to shatter like a pane of glass. That's called a slab avalanche, gordon said. It's the kind that they're most worried about in Alta, and it tends to come after a period that feels good, a little winter sun.
- [07:47]
Jonathan Morgan
The longer period of time we go in between storms, the weaker that snow gets. So we might really enjoy those sunny, cold days. But the snowpack oftentimes doesn't feel our same emotion.
- [08:05]
Sally Helm
It might have been helpful for Alta's early residents to understand the emotions of the snowpack. Alta is located in those Wasatch Mountains, in an area known as Little Cottonwood Canyon. We talked to Andrea Huskinson, former communications manager for the Alta ski area. She told us a little while after the gold rush in California, there was a silver rush out here in the Wasatch Mountains. Miners from all over were drawn to the ore deposits near Alta.
- [08:36]
Adam Scott
So they came up here, started mining, and they stayed up here for the winter and didn't realize, like, it all comes down.
- [08:46]
Sally Helm
It all comes down the mountain. That is.
- [08:52]
Adam Scott
They had a lot of natural avalanche slides and then they couldn't get down the canyon. You know, they ran out of food it was rough living conditions. I'm glad I wasn't a miner.
- [09:04]
Sally Helm
Yeah. Pretty often an avalanche would trap the miners and their families in the town of Alta. Or worse. On February 13, 1885, an avalanche a mile long comes barreling down towards the town of Alta. On its way, it creates hurricane force winds. And when it arrives, it destroys more than half the town. Residents desperately try to dig their family members out of the snow. They manage to rescue nine people, but they also recover many bodies. In all, 15 people are killed, and this isn't the first time. The year before, an avalanche had killed 12 people, including a little boy. Between 1865 and 1915, it's estimated that up to 250 people were killed by avalanches. Right after the big one in 1885, a newspaper publishes an article calling this the same old story. It asks rhetorically why people are still living in Alta. The answer, of course, is that they need to make a living, even if it puts them in mortal peril. And so, after each avalanche, they mourn the dead and then try to put the town back together.
- [10:25]
Adam Scott
They'd have to rebuild. And so it was. It was hard to live up here in those times. I can't imagine living up here in those times.
- [10:35]
Sally Helm
This isn't to say that the people living in Alta were totally helpless against the snow. Many of them were Scandinavian immigrants who knew how to handle themselves in extreme winter conditions. And one of their solutions was, in fact, skiing.
- [10:53]
Adam Scott
I'm sure in the winter, they got out and someone was like, oh, this might be fun to put two sticks on and ski down it.
- [10:59]
Sally Helm
Skiing was mostly for utilitarian purposes at this point, not recreation. It's reported that mail men in Alta would use some kind of skis to get around. In 1884, there is a mention of a ski race, spelled S K E e. Some of the skis are much longer than they would be today, like 14ft. Others are short and stubby. Many are homemade, but they work to get around and maybe provide a little entertainment. But by the end of that decade, the 1880s, the mining economy goes bust. There are a lot of reasons. The surface deposits of silver ore have been run down. The government takes silver dollars out of circulation, so that means less demand. The industry does eventually recover, but then it goes bust again, and then again, this time helped along by the stock market crash of 1929. As more miners leave Alta, the avalanches continue to destroy buildings until, by the 1930s, it's basically a ghost town. It does still have at least one intrepid resident, a man who loves it here. He always calls the place romantic Alta. His name is George H. Watson. He's living alone in a cabin, and he's so committed to the town that he elects himself mayor. Wins by one vote. In other words, it's unanimous. One winter, Watson is reading a magazine when he comes across an article about how skiing is becoming more popular around the US and he thinks that might be just what Alta needs. He writes to about 200 ski resorts around the country to learn more. And eventually, in 1937, he decides to donate 700 acres of land to the US National Forest Service to turn into a ski area again.
- [13:05]
Jonathan Morgan
Craig Gordon, the Forest Service is really keen on this. And it's like we've got, I mean, hundreds of acres of public lands. Why don't we utilize that?
- [13:16]
Sally Helm
The country is also still coming out of the Great Depression. A brand new industry might be just the thing the region needs to get back on track.
- [13:24]
Jonathan Morgan
I'm sure somebody is thinking, wow, we could also maybe generate a little bit of revenue and help local economies. So, yeah, I mean, the ski industry, the seed for that, is planted.
- [13:35]
Sally Helm
But don't forget that romantic Alta has long been known as the most avalanche prone place in Utah. Skiing can actually cause avalanches by helping to dislodge those big slabs. Then skiers and the people below are in grave danger. Jonathan Morgan is assistant director of the Alta Avalanche program. He said when they make this deal with Mayor George Watson, the government actually sees this threat coming.
- [14:06]
Ben Stiller
And the U.S. forest Service, they're one step ahead. They know there's been a big avalanche problem here. They know they're going to have their hands full.
- [14:13]
Sally Helm
So they hire Douglas Wadsworth, a US Forest ranger, to be their first snow and avalanche observer. He'll be in charge of protecting people from avalanches.
- [14:26]
Ben Stiller
Really, no one had been positioned to a job like this before, certainly not through the United States government. So, I mean, what a job for that individual to take on.
- [14:38]
Sally Helm
Wadsworth has weather observation instruments installed throughout Alta and begins analyzing years and years of data. He also writes some rules. The first avalanche safety rules in North America. They're not that deep. They basically boil down to if there's been a storm recently, stay away from avalanche prone areas. In the meantime, the quest to make Alta a ski capital continues. In January of 1939, that new chairlift opens, and skiers flock to this beautiful snowy destination. And the following month, February of 1939, Douglas Wadsworth tries something new, something much more dramatic than writing a list of rules. And regulations.
- [15:30]
Ben Stiller
He was the first one to try to initiate an avalanche that we know of in North America for operational purposes. With explosives.
- [15:38]
Sally Helm
Yes, explosives. Dynamite, to be exact. See, Wadsworth has a theory that by using explosives, he can trigger an avalanche while people are out of harm's way. That would kind of release the pressure so that an avalanche won't happen at a different time. When more people are around, he decides to put his theory to the test.
- [16:01]
Ben Stiller
He and the then ski school director went somewhere down toward the base of Mount Superior. They picked the biggest thing they could find.
- [16:10]
Sally Helm
Mount Superior is one of the highest peaks in the area.
- [16:13]
Ben Stiller
And they planted an unknown amount of.
- [16:15]
Sally Helm
Explosives and set them off. And then minutes go by and no result. Wadsworth and the ski school director go home. The theory seems to have failed until the next day.
- [16:43]
Ben Stiller
A massive natural avalanche came down thousands of feet wide.
- [16:48]
Sally Helm
The trees were smashed apart like toothpicks. If the two men had still been there, they would have been instantly killed.
- [16:58]
Ben Stiller
So, I mean, what a. What a. What a first try right there.
- [17:02]
Sally Helm
Yeah. Wadsworth's experiments don't go much further, but this experience suggests that he could be onto something. His successor in the job, Sveri Engin, decides to focus on a non dynamite approach. Understandable. He mostly uses signage to mitigate avalanche risk, like area closed.
- [17:21]
Ben Stiller
His form of mitigation was passive mitigation. Letting it sit, letting the weak layers settle out. That requires an incredible amount of patience. I'm sure the skiers were just chomping.
- [17:32]
Sally Helm
At the bit, but these little signs do keep people safe. In fact, the only fatality at Alta at this point is because of a skier ignoring a danger sign. Still, it is a pretty inefficient system. Skiers have to wait for conditions to improve, sometimes for days. So some people think there's gotta be a better way, something more active, something we can actually do. Sveri engen retires in 1945 due to arthritis and is replaced by a man named Monty Atwater. Atwater had just come out of military service in World War II. And during the war he had seen firsthand that the Swiss used mortars and bombs to trigger avalanches in the Alps.
- [18:20]
Ben Stiller
He saw firsthand explosives being used to create avalanches. And so that's really where the ball gets rolling.
- [18:27]
Sally Helm
Atwater's first experiment goes the same way as Wadsworth's. Nothing happens. Not that day and not the next day either. And he figures out something. Wadsworth had tried to trigger an avalanche during a relatively safe time. But Monty Atwater realizes That's not the best way forward.
- [18:50]
Ben Stiller
He quickly learns that you need to not detonate your explosive in the most convenient time, but you need to detonate your explosive when the avalanche hazard is highest.
- [19:01]
Sally Helm
For Atwater's second test, he goes to the top of Rustler Face, one of the most avalanche prone slopes in Alta. There he plants 20 pounds of tetratol, an explosive. And from a short distance away, he sets it off with an electric detonator. To see what happens, he sticks his head up from behind the rock where he's hiding. When the shockwave hit me, I thought it had sliced my head off just above the eyes. But he does what he set out to do. He triggers an avalanche, then skis down the slope behind it. But the force of the blast shows just how risky this method is.
- [19:54]
Ben Stiller
They knew that was so dangerous. They were like, we need to do this from a safe place.
- [19:59]
Sally Helm
So how do you set off an explosion from a safe distance? With a really big gun. In 1949, the gun that Monte Atwater needs is sitting in a surprising place. The Utah State Capitol. It's a French 75 howitzer, an artillery piece made famous during World War I. Its only use right now is ceremonial salutes. Atwater says, I have a better idea at this point. Monty Atwater has been the Alta Snow Ranger since 1945. He's known for this practice of setting off explosives, hanging them from trees, burying them deep in the snow, all with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He's a renegade, but his methods are working again.
- [20:57]
Ben Stiller
Jonathan Morgan, he has some good results, but really what he's looking for is he wants an artillery piece. He wants to shoot from a safe distance and make avalanches at their time and place.
- [21:13]
Sally Helm
Atwater finally convinces his bosses at the U.S. forest Service to run an experiment. The Utah national guard brings that 75 millimeter howitzer up from the Capitol, and they're going to shoot it, not at water. On March 30, 1949, the Howitzer is in place a safe distance from the mountain. Atwater's there to watch, along with a flock of reporters. He later writes that this annoyed him, having the press there. But Jonathan Morgan thinks otherwise.
- [21:46]
Ben Stiller
Monte knew how to, you know, work the wheels. He knew how to get the right photographers and the right reporters up here and the right politicians.
- [21:54]
Sally Helm
Atwater tells the crowd not to expect much. This is just a test. He directs the National Guardsmen to their first target. And another 15 shots in total, and five avalanches come crashing down the Wasatch Mountains.
- [22:20]
Ben Stiller
They had good avalanche results. Everyone was pretty happy with what they saw.
- [22:25]
Sally Helm
As the Salt Lake Telegram reported, modern science went up Little Cottonwood Canyon Wednesday to help Mother Nature with her spring mountain cleaning. This is a success. Controlled avalanches triggered from a safe distance, making the mountain safer for all those skiers. Atwater estimates that to get the same results without the howitzer, it would have taken three days of hiking manually planting charges. Now he's proved that this other system could work. Even though it's kind of weird to have a huge military weapon become a major part of life at a ski resort. The National Guard gets the idea but says you can't use these guns yourself. Atwater has to give them 24 hours notice. But by the next winter, they agree to let him store the gun at Alta. And by the third winter, they let him shoot the mountain all on his own. Alta has revolutionized avalanche control as Attwater keeps evolving his methods. Surroundings can ski areas copy him and get their own guns at Alta. By the late 1960s, an average of 700 rounds of artillery are fired each year. It's a practice that lasts for decades, allowing generations of skiers to enjoy the mountains safely. Between 1950 and 1994, avalanche deaths in controlled ski areas in the US drop 87%. Craig Gordon was one of the gunners who helped make that happen.
- [24:05]
Jonathan Morgan
It is the coldest job on the mountain. You're standing on a gun mount and the old school gun mounts were often exposed to weather and wind. And you're not moving around. And the time that it takes to sight everything in without absolute precision and no ability to make any mistakes, knowing that if we overshot, that would be no espiono. Nobody would look kindly on that.
- [24:39]
Sally Helm
There is a Misfire incident in 2005. Not in Alta. It's in a city nearby. A 105 millimeter artillery shell lands in the backyard of the Connors family. The explosion blew out the windows of their house. If their 3 year old hadn't been lying on the ground watching TV, he could have been killed.
- [24:59]
Ben Stiller
And you know, and that's on every gunner's mind when they're dialing in that elevation.
- [25:05]
Sally Helm
Craig Gordon agrees. It's not lost on him how dangerous these guns can be. And he said there's a weird kind of cognitive dissonance when you're shooting one of these massive guns in such a peaceful place.
- [25:19]
Jonathan Morgan
This is a Korean War error piece of artillery. And the brave people who do shoot these weapons during times of war do not have this luxury. And this time, and it really put me into a time and place. This is something that was used at one time as a war piece and now we're using it to keep the peace with a snowpack. And it is really just kind of a mind blowing juxtaposition of the use of a piece of military artillery.
- [25:57]
Sally Helm
Alta now hosts half a million skiers each season. Skiing there is more popular than ever. And a lot of that is due to those avalanche control efforts which made it possible to do this sport without as much fear. In 2023, Alta retired its howitzer. The gun was on loan from the army who wanted it back.
- [26:24]
Ben Stiller
They were a great tool and the time has come to replace them with something else. They've done their part and helped out, but you know, it's, it's not the safest thing to do to fire a, an artillery piece.
- [26:39]
Sally Helm
Alta used a Howitzer for 74 years. But now, in the modern world, avalanche control experts don't need a giant gun, though they do still need explosives. They use what are called remote avalanche control systems to set off blasts from a safe distance away. So Craig Gordon says if you go up Little Cottonwood Canyon today, you're still likely to hear plenty of explosions.
- [27:04]
Jonathan Morgan
Yeah, I sort of mountain music around here, you know, explosives go off and, you know it's going to be a good day and you know, the hard working women and men of the ski patrol are out there knocking avalanches down and trying to make that safe and get that open for skiers.
- [27:26]
Sally Helm
Thanks for listening to History this week, a Back Pocket Studios production in partnership with the History Channel. To stay updated on all things history this week, sign up@historythisweekpodcast.com and if you have any thoughts or questions, send us an email@historythisweekistory.com Special thanks to our guests, Craig Gordon, avalanche forecaster with the U.S. forest Service's Utah Avalanche Center, Andrea Huskinson, former Alta Ski area communication manager, and Jonathan Morgan, assistant director of the Alta Avalanche program. This episode was produced and sound designed by Ben Dickstein. It was also produced by me, Sally Helm for Back Pocket Studios. Our executive producers are Ben Dickstein and David Weisbord from the History Channel. Our executive producers are Eli Lehrer and Liv Fiddler. Don't forget to follow rate and review History this week, wherever you get your podcasts and we'll see you next week.