Little Cottonwood Canyon

Avalanche Infrastructure Study above town of Alta

Client

Fehr & Peers (2015 to 2016) and HDR Engineering (2018 to 2020) under contract to Utah Department of Transportation

Project Details

The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) SR-210 and Town of Alta (TOA) Avalanche Infrastructure Study evaluated avalanche mitigation options for avalanche paths affecting State Road (SR) 210 and the TOA. The study provided stakeholders with options that reduced avalanche hazard and eliminated artillery fire, used for avalanche control, over the TOA.

Challenges

The SR-210 is the only transportation corridor for Alta and Snowbird and experiences high traffic volumes.
Effective avalanche control required that artillery is fired over the TOA, including occupied buildings.
The TOA has many buildings exposed to avalanche hazard with unique procedures to manage the risk.
SR-210 and the TOA had a high number of hours for road closures and townsite access restrictions.

Successes

The study reviewed both long-and short-term mitigation options, such as snow net systems, deflection and stopping barriers and remote avalanche control systems (RACS).
Long-term measures would require very large installations to be effective. This posed significant challenges, resulted in low benefit-cost ratios and made construction infeasible in many areas due to limited available space.
RACS were the recommended option, which could eliminate firing artillery over 53 buildings.
UDOT implemented this recommendation beginning in 2017, with over two dozen RACS now installed. Artillery fire over the TOA has been completely eliminated since 2023.

Ariel mountain view, with road running through base of mountains.

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