All language subtitles for Impossible Engineering s07e08 Conquering Avalanche Country.eng

In this episode, man versus snow.

How do we build a structure in this
environment?

Be very careful.

There aren't any lifts like this in the
world. And the groundbreaking

innovations from history.

It's incredible.

There's plenty of snow to collapse your
typical roof structure.

That make the impossible possible.

The Coast Mountain Range of British
Columbia.

1 ,000 miles of vast chasms.

Towering walls.

And ice -crowned peaks.

Wendy Robinson lives and works in this
extreme environment.

It's an incredible place to be.

But we're on the Coastal Range, so we do
have constantly changing conditions,

extreme wind, extreme weather. You do
get a lot of snowfall.

Mankind has been trying to conquer this
type of environment since the beginning

of time.

But there's one place in particular
where engineers are taking on all its

challenges on an unprecedented scale.

This is Whistler, British Columbia's
most famous

mountain.

Whistler has among the highest snow
loads in the country. It takes a certain

type of engineering and construction
method to build in a town like this.

It's not just the snow, it's any time
that you're working at the top of a

mountain.

You have to deal with wind, rain,
lightning.

We can get hail. It makes it very
difficult to build in this environment.

Conquering Whistler requires mega muscle
in the air.

Pure power on the ground.

Cutting edge technology.

and engineering that defies nature.

Whistler is the biggest and busiest ski
area in North America.

It has a record -breaking cable car with
an unsupported span stretching a

staggering 2 .7 miles.

And it's home to the highest altitude
suspension bridge in North America.

The peak of Worcester Mountain, at the
very top, the top of the Worcester Peak

Express Chair, and above everything.

It definitely takes a lot to build in an
environment like this, the conditions

that we deal with, but when it comes
down to it, this is probably one of the

best places on Earth.

When you're fighting nature on this
scale, ordinary engineering just isn't

enough.

It's a really formidable, hostile
environment.

Designing a structure in these
conditions is incredibly difficult.

More than 23 feet of snow falls on these
mountains every year.

And when it gets out of control, it can
be deadly.

Me and my crew are just on our way, and
we'll be about 10 minutes or so.

Copy that. Thanks, guys.

Jeff Vandriel is one of British
Columbia's avalanche technicians.

So we're driving on Highway 99 here.
This section is known locally as the

Lake Road.

I think a lot of people think of snow as
being this soft, fluffy material, but

avalanches have a significant amount of
power and enough to destroy vehicles, to

destroy trees, to destroy buildings.

they are a force of nature to be
reckoned with for sure.

Avalanches have ripped through this
region since time began, wreaking havoc

taking lives.

And stopping them is impossible.

We are not going to be able to stop the
avalanches. They are going to run one

way or another.

The worst case scenario would be that
uncontrolled avalanches would hit the

highway. Our job is to maintain the
safety of the road and keep it open.

To control one of nature's wildest and
most destructive phenomena, Jeff and his

colleagues will have to draw inspiration
from the early pioneering mountain

engineers.

Mechanical engineer Dan Dickrell is in
Flagstaff, Arizona.

exploring a solution that came out of
left field.

All right, you ready?

All right, here we go.

That was a little high.

So the game of baseball is a pretty old
game, and the game itself is unchanged

since the late 1890s, basically.

What's interesting is the technology
that surrounds baseball has evolved,

though. So what we're doing right now is
having a bit of batting practice.

As the afternoon wears on, the accuracy
of my pitches

slowly deteriorates, but we use
technology to enhance this practicing

and take a little load off this old arm
of mine.

All right, here we go.

Ooh, that was a good one.

In the 1950s, baseball practice was
changed forever with the invention of

pneumatic pitching machine.

Finally, human pitchers could take a
rest.

This particular machine would be the
grandchild of the original pneumatic

pitching machine.

I'm going to take this baseball and I'm
going to drop it in. As I do, the

compressor builds up air pressure in
here.

Once it hits a pressure that is
sufficient to give me the exit speed

want, all of that stored up air will be
dumped into this barrel, forcing the

baseball out and propelling it down
towards the batters.

But one man saw another potential for
this technology.

For years, Monty Atwater had tried
various methods of setting off

avalanches, including artillery and
dynamite blasting.

But after seeing a pneumatic baseball
pitching machine in action, he had a

stroke of genius.

Check this out.

This is Monty Atwater's avalanche.

One of the last remaining examples of
his literally groundbreaking idea.

If we look at it, we see this.

Vessel here is where the compressed air
goes. An air compressor gets hooked into

this, pumping air in, pressurizing it,
building up that charge.

Instead of firing baseballs, Monty's
avalancheer packs a much bigger punch.

So I've got my explosive projectile.
I've got some stabilizing fins, a remote

detonator, and then I would drop it in,
and then we would trigger it, projectile

would shoot out.

Ultimately, when it landed, it would
detonate and hopefully trigger an

avalanche. Now, the reason why this
barrel is so long is because the longer

barrel, the higher the velocity of the
projectile coming out. And the higher

velocity, the further distance, the
bigger the range that you'll have for

avalanche. This pneumatic -powered
launcher was capable of firing explosive

projectiles a whopping 1 ,200 feet into
a mountain, starting avalanches from

a safe distance.

This was a great solution to that
problem of how do you trigger an

without putting the people that work on
the mountain in danger themselves?

All over the world, new generations of
avalanches are used to set off

avalanches from a distance.

reducing the risk of a catastrophic
disaster.

But high up in the mountains that
surround Whistler, avalanche teams will

engineering on a whole new level.

Mountainous areas with heavy snowfall
are prone to avalanches, capable of

devastating the unsuspecting towns below
in the blink of an eye. To reduce the

risk of these often unpredictable
falling masses of snow and ice, modern

avalanches are used to set off
controlled avalanches from a safe

reaching the high mountains that
surround Whistler calls for more

engineering.

Beautiful place to work, that's for
sure.

Jeff Vandriel is in charge of a new
detonation system that avalanche

Monty Atwater could have only dreamed
of.

What have we got for temperatures up
here?

I think we're looking at minus two right
now.

An unexpected avalanche up here could be
disastrous.

As we approach Lowdown Peak, path 51
here, you just see the road is just a

sitting duck.

Right underneath of it. And so our job
here is to maintain an open highway by

controlling the avalanches so that we
can control when people are exposed to

avalanche problem.

At 7 ,500 feet, the 21st century
solution has reached new heights.

And what we're looking at here is the
solution to our avalanche problem.

Yeah, Ken, so if you want to just bring
us right up to the summit there.

front of the track there yeah that's
perfect yeah i'll plan to make an

i think should be no problem setting us
down on the peak here so

these are our remote avalanche control

system exploders this is one of our key
solutions to keeping the road open from

avalanches

This here is the number one exploder
within our remote avalanche control

up here at the top of Lowdown Peak.

These huge spouts are the latest in
avalanche management technology, known

Jeff and his team simply as exploders.

So what this does, it sends a
directional shockwave onto the slope.

actual projectile that will end up on
the slope, littering the slope or

like that. It's literally just a
shockwave that stresses the snow and

the avalanche.

Huge metal tube -like structures called
exploders are installed permanently into

the mountain face.

A shelter nearby houses canisters of
oxygen and propane.

Through a series of pipes, these
exploders are fed a mixture of the two

which, once combined in the tube, are
ignited by a spark.

The resulting blast is expelled at great
force out of the directional nozzle

into the snowpack.

And if the conditions are right, this
will initiate the snow slide.

Now, the team is able to set off
explosions from much further away than

avalanche. By using radio communication,
they can retreat to an extraordinary 15

.5 mile distance.

Okay, connecting to the west rib.

Fire in the hole.

When the risk is highest, the team
temporarily closes the road and triggers

avalanche.

They can then clear the debris and
reopen the road quickly and safely.

Having this technology at our disposal
definitely does save lives. It allows us

to bring down the avalanches when we
have closed the road rather than

coming down and hitting the traveling
public on the highway.

But runaway snow is not the only
potential deadly hazard.

What happens when all that snow melts?

Mike Curry is part of a team at nearby
Fitzsimmons Creek, responsible for

protecting the town from the potential
devastation flooding could cause.

We have these events that come down the
creek that are akin to channelized

landslides, or we call them debris
floods or sometimes debris flows.

If we had such an event, if we were to
look up the creek, you'd probably see a

frontal wave coming down with big
boulders and trees, and it would be kind

coming like a bulldozer down the
channel, like a small landslide. And in

it would be a very turbulent, rocky flow
with boulders and logs sticking out of

it. It would be chaos.

A debris flood on this scale could rip
through the town below.

So Mike and his team have devised an
epic engineering solution.

So this is the Fitzsimmons Creek debris
barrier, the largest of its type in

British Columbia.

And the way the structure works is that
the boulders and trees that can come

down from the creek, they hit the steel
pieces there, and the load gets

transmitted. into the two compression
pieces on either side so each one of

steel beams on the left there is a
compression beam that is transmitting

load from the the creek boulder impact
into the abutment over there and

similarly on the other side here we have
a similar situation going directly to

bedrock designed that it will bend but
not break during that kind of debris

loading

Protecting Whistler from a 1 in 2 ,500
-year chance of a debris flood, the

suspended steel barricade design is the
only one of its type in the world.

Perched above the creek, the 26 -foot
-high debris barrier is capable of

restraining over a million cubic feet of
debris.

The town can rest easy knowing that the
Fitzsimmons Creek debris barrier will

protect them.

if an extreme debris flood ever occurs.

But engineers will now face their next
challenge when it comes to building in

the extreme element.

Norms freezing and thawing and expanding
as it freezes could literally split

buildings in half.

Whittler in Canada.

The biggest mountain resort in North
America.

It attracts 3 million visitors annually
and is the site of a year -round battle

between engineers and the natural
environment.

You know, when we're flying up here, you
get a really good perspective on the

terrain. And this job really gives me a
really good respect, a healthy respect.

One of the biggest challenges engineers
face is getting visitors from A to

B.

The Whistler region's most famous and
popular peaks are Whistler Mountain

and the neighboring Blackcomb Mountain.

But getting from one peak to another
could mean a long and time -consuming

journey.

So engineers have come up with an
extraordinary solution.

The peak -to -peak gondola.

A world record -breaking piece of
mountain engineering.

Be very careful and do not cross these
lines.

Wayne Wiltsey has the job of looking
after this mechanical giant.

So right now we're at the exit of the
Whistler Terminal, and the cabins are

heading off towards Wackham.

The peak -to -peak spans 2 .8 miles,
nearly four times the length of the

Harbour Bridge.

and at its highest point it is 1 ,430
feet above the ground, almost enough

to fit the entire Empire State Building
below.

To achieve this groundbreaking piece of
engineering, four giant towers were

constructed on the sides of the valley.

And on each peak is a station, strong
enough to pull 28 gondolas.

each containing 28 people across a more
than two and a half mile gap.

That's the main drive, bow wheel.

These two wheels are guides. And why
they have the three is to spread

out so that we can get the large gauge
that's required for the big cabin.

Because of the size of the lift, we have
emergency brakes or bow wheel brakes on

all three wheels.

It took two years to construct the
longest unsupported span aerial ropeway

the world.

So right now, we're in the whistle
terminal, the peak -to -peak.

It'll take us about 15 minutes to make
the journey across the black hole.

Most cable cars carry their cabins on a
single moving cable.

This haul rope is supported by a series
of towers and loops around a drive wheel

at each end of the journey.

But take away the towers, and the cable
is immediately put under extra stress.

And in Whistler, the team is attempting
to go further than ever before.

We're spanning the distance between two
mountains.

With one cable, with just the haul rope,
it wouldn't be possible because the

haul rope would not be able to support
the load of the cabin.

The engineer's solution was a three
-cable system on an unprecedented scale.

Cables, each weighing almost 100 tons,
were produced in Europe and brought to

the site using specialist heavy lift
transport.

It took 11 weeks to stretch the cables
across the valley.

Each cabin runs on wheels along two
static cables, pulled by a third moving

cable that operates in an enormous 5 .5
-mile loop.

The two highly tensioned static tramway
cables provide strength and stability in

the powerful mountain winds.

You know, think of them as tracks.

Think of them as a railway, right? So
those tracks support and the cabins ride

on the tracks and the haul rope, which
runs down the middle, pulls the cabins

the tracks from terminal to terminal.

They were able to, with the track ropes,
achieve the huge span.

This is unique mountain engineering on
an epic scale.

When you go and you actually look
through the floor or you look out the

it's kind of like flying in an airplane
or in a helicopter. It's a pretty cool

experience. There aren't any lifts like
this in the world.

Building anywhere in Whistler means
overcoming a host of extreme natural

obstacles, even in the valley below.

Whistler has among the highest snow
loads in the country, a country that

lot of snow to begin with.

Eric Karsh is part of the team behind
building the Audain Art Museum, a huge

building that will need to cope with 23
feet of heavy snow each winter.

If you ignore the amount of snow that we
have here, structurally, of course it

could collapse.

From the point of view of snow masses
freezing and thawing and expanding,

Freezes could literally split buildings
in half if you don't account for it.

Yes, from a dangerous environment.

With the threat of a fierce winter
looming on the horizon, engineers will

to move quickly to create a building
that can withstand the full force of

Whistler's snowfall.

In Whistler, construction of the massive
Audain Art Museum is underway.

But engineers will need to ensure that
the building won't be buried under the

feet of snow that covers the region each
year.

Mount Hood, Oregon.

A permanently snow -covered peak
blighted by blizzards.

Constructing a building to withstand
this wild environment seems impossible.

But structural engineer Nathan Ingrafia
is searching through the whiteout for

the answer.

So this area of Mount Hood, it's not
unusual to get upwards of 20 feet of

in a season, maybe 30.

That's plenty of snow to easily collapse
your typical roof structure.

Daring to build in these difficult
conditions was prominent architect

Stanley Underwood.

His mission was to build a hotel that
could withstand the impact of

snowstorms.

Matt, you can stop here. It's a good
view.

What he came up with was the stunning
Timberline Lodge.

one of the most extraordinary and
unmistakable hotels in the world.

This building has a really iconic shape.

It's a really, really unique design.

Immortalized as the facade of the
menacing Outlook Hotel in Stanley

film The Shining, Timberline is
instantly recognizable thanks to its

roofline.

Just like in Whistler, Underwood needed
to create a large building with plenty

of open space that could handle the
heavy snowfall.

The answer was a roof design called a
cat slide.

So this model represents your typical
steeply sloped roof.

So you can see that this roof is very,
very effective at shedding the snow.

Now, if you wanted to make the building
larger, to compensate for that, you

would lower the pitch of the roof.

You can see with this shallower pitched
roof that the roof collapsed under the

weight of the snow that didn't easily
shut off the roof.

The way to solve this problem is the cat
slide roof.

To do this, we're going to have to lose
a little bit of the upper floor area.

And now using a cat slide roof,

The roof extends past this initial eave
height all the way down to the second

floor, if you will.

Now using another identical bucket, you
can see that that roof effectively

shed all of the snow and no snow at all
stayed on the roof.

All of that snow that shed off is now
piled up just outside the building.

The ambitious 55 ,000 square foot
Timberline Lodge finished construction

1938.

And its iconic cat slide roofs were the
perfect solution to eliminating serious

snow loads.

The concept, it's somewhat ingenious
because it allows you to shed snow while

also maintaining as much floor area as
possible.

Just like the Timberline Lodge in
Oregon, the Audane Art Museum's clever

structure protects it against Whistler's
crushing, destructive snow.

So we decided to have this really steep
roof and a slippery metal roofing that

allows the snow to slip and shed. And as
you can see right now, there's no snow

at all on the roof.

Like the hotel on Mount Hood, this roof
line continues much further than in a

traditional building.

That, from a volume design point of
view, gives us a space in the middle of

volume that is quite high, where we can
have a two -story space.

And if you extend the roof beyond that
two -story space, you end up with a one

-story volume, which is the corridor
that we're walking through right now,

a beautiful view to the forest.

This way, you can maximize your floor
area within that design.

We're in the mechanical well, which
gives us a view of the roof from above.

If you look at the roof surface from the
top to the bottom, you don't see any

joints in the metal elements, which
allows the snow to slip off unobstructed

because the sheet metal is completely
continuous from one end of the roof to

other.

The result is a cutting -edge art museum
that can withstand 23 feet of annual

snowfall.

To build in a town like Whistler, you
can't be afraid of challenges. It's not

the easiest place to build, but these
challenges certainly made it an exciting

project.

With buildings designed to withstand the
snow, getting out and enjoying the

powder is high on visitors' to -do list.

But taming some of the steepest slopes
on the planet will require ingenious

engineering.

There's just not enough traction to hold
up the machine.

In Whistler, British Columbia, engineers
are facing a constant battle to keep

Mother Nature under control.

With the world's highest cable car up
and running, the team is now setting

sights even higher.

Their next goal, building a footbridge
and viewing platform at the very tip of

mountain summit.

This pretty much scores at the top of
the list for challenging sites.

Ryan Foster is part of the team that
must conquer the mountain.

This location is one of a kind.

It's almost like standing on top of a
pyramid.

The Cloud Raker Sky Bridge and Raven's
Eye viewing platform will be 7 ,200

feet above sea level.

The highest altitude suspension bridge
in North America.

This design requires tons of steel and
concrete placed on the peak with

accuracy.

But out in the wilderness, traditional
construction methods are totally

impossible.

The solution is extreme air power.

So you can see he's coming in with a
lob.

The massive Kamov Ka -32 helicopter is
designed to be a flying crane.

capable of lifting extraordinary weights
with ease.

He's got a bubble window. He's looking
down.

He's going to bring it in and put it
exactly where he wants it off the road.

And he'll be placing it right now.

And now he'll release the grapple, open
up the claws, use the arms and fly away.

Go for another turn.

You need to be very precise.

Shane Palmer is in charge of a fleet of
these monsters.

They hold the key to building on
Whistler's mountaintop.

So the helicopter is going to be landing
shortly. They're almost down to a fuel

level where they have to refuel.

I can feel the power right now.

The secret to its lifting power is in
its twin set of rotors.

44 all together.

The top set is going one way and the
bottom set is going another way.

So you have counter torque.

That's why they don't need a tail rotor.

The way you yaw is they change the pitch
of the top set differentially from the

bottom set.

The two counter rotating sets of rotors
means the Kamov doesn't need a tail

rotor to stop the helicopter body from
spinning.

So every single horsepower is dedicated
to Lynn.

The Kamov can lift more than five tons
at a time, making it the perfect machine

for an impossible challenge, like
building the highest altitude suspension

bridge in North America.

So when we're erecting this deal, We're
100 % working at height. There are 1

,703 pieces of steel to connect.

These are extremely heavy pieces of
steel.

In Whistler, the Kamov and other heavy
lift helicopters allow engineers to

at more than 7 ,000 feet above sea
level.

There's over 95 ,000 kilos of...
structural steel, reinforcing steel,

and anchor bars.

And so that requires a lot of foresight
and a very careful plan.

The result is record -breaking mountain
engineering.

The 427 -foot Cloudbreaker SkyBridge and
the Raven's Eye viewing

platform.

It seemed like an impossible endeavour,
an incredible piece of engineering

that's gone into this.

Walking out there, the bridge is an
incredible experience to walk through

the metal grates, so you can see through
to the Whistler Bowl below, and then

getting out onto that cantilever, I
mean, you're sitting out 13 .5 metres

the rock, off the cliff face, and
looking down into snow and ice. It's an

incredible experience.

Many of the challenges facing engineers
in Whistler stem from having too much

snow. But sometimes the problem actually
is not having enough.

Construction in Whistler is a serious
challenge for engineers, thanks to the

more than 20 feet of snow that buries
the region each winter. But sometimes a

lack of snow can be just as problematic.

You know, we have a pretty amazing area
that we live in, lots of steep slopes.

Whistler's renowned for its steep
slopes. And everybody, as they're skiing

through the day, they push the snow
downhill, they push it to the side, and

build huge moguls.

The uneven movement of the snow can
spell danger.

Ramps can form and rocks can become
exposed.

The obvious solution is to use a snowcat
to push the snow to where it is needed.

But some of Whistler's slopes are so
steep that an ordinary snowcat would end

sliding off the mountainside.

On Vancouver Island, off Canada's West
Coast, mechanical engineer Agnes D

'Entremont is searching amongst the
remains of the once booming logging

for one of the last surviving examples
of an innovation that could help the

in Whistler.

This is a temperate rainforest that
grows some of the largest trees in the

world. Douglas fir, Sitka spruce,
western red cedar. These trees were used

millennia by First Nations, but logging
really got into gear when Europeans

arrived, who built mills like this to
process the logs into lumber.

The challenge was getting those logs out
of the forest, off the slope, in order

to bring them here to be processed.

Moving monster trees required a monster
machine.

This is a steam donkey.

A mechanical beast with unprecedented
power.

This is so rare.

Invented by logging entrepreneur John
Dolbier in 1881, this steam -powered

needed a skilled team to operate it.

Grab a chuck of wood there and chuck it
in the fire. Okay.

The puncher running the engine.

The spark chaser to put out fires.

Wow, you can feel how hot this is.

And the whistle punk, relaying signals
to the choke setters who attach the

Together, they could tackle jobs
previously thought impossible.

Off we go, Joe.

So right now, the logs are being lifted
and dragged at the same time by the

steam donkey.

But the steam donkey had another
extraordinary skill.

one that can hold the key to taming the
snow slopes in Whistler.

It's incredible that a nearly 100 -year
-old machine can haul all of these logs.

That's not all it can do. It can also
haul itself, including to steeper and

steeper slopes.

And so to do that, they attach the cable
around a distant tree and use the wind

to haul this giant iron machine on these
enormous wooden sleds

up the slope.

Using the muscle of the winch allowed
the steam donkey to go where no machine

had gone before, transforming the
logging industry and taming the forest's

flows.

This is the office, and it never really
gets old.

On the treacherous snow slopes of
Whistler, it's modern winch power that

the key.

Okay, away we go.

This is the winch cat.

A snow cat with an added hydraulic winch
on a 360 -degree turret.

It's the ultimate off -road vehicle.

If we didn't have the winch, we'd
probably do it about... 50 or 60

hour about now, like we'd be going
really fast.

Conditions like this, there's just not
enough traction to hold up the machine.

The snow would just shear off and you'd
be flying.

A steel cable over half a mile long
allows the vehicle to virtually dangle

extreme slopes and move snow exactly
where the operator wants it.

What we have to do here, you can see
that there's

Rock showing in the rope that had to be
repaired.

The boom is now over the cab, which is
why it had that shape so that we can see

the rope in front of us as we're going
uphill.

So right now we're about 700 meters from
where we hooked up the rope.

You can see the rope in front of us way
up in the air.

And we are at 29 .3 degrees.

Pretty incredible.

The trash is starting to slip now.

This is a job that would be impossible
with a regular snow cab.

Whistler might be one of the most
challenging environments on the planet,

engineers refuse to let this world of
snow and ice beat them.

It's a real privilege to be able to work
with this type of technology.

It's really spectacular, and I really
enjoy my job.

By standing on the shoulders of
history's innovators.

And adding their own imagination,
determination, and daring, they are

mountain engineering to unprecedented
height.

You know, if we didn't have this
technology and this engineering in place

we wouldn't all be up here enjoying the
mountains. We'd be in the valley looking

up going, wow, I wish I could be up
there.

And making the impossible possible.

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