On the afternoon of March 23, 2005, a bomb fell out of the sky and exploded in Scott and Lori Connors’ backyard in Pleasant Grove, cratering their lawn, sending shrapnel into their living room and shattering their shed.

The errant explosive, three miles off course, was a shell from a military howitzer the Utah Department of Transportation uses for avalanche control, a practice that started in the steep, slide-prone terrain of Little Cottonwood Canyon in the 1940s, where pioneering snow scientists developed protocols that would come to be used all over the world.

To use this weapon of war to save people’s lives is very poignant. You can kind of compare it to warfare, it fuels the romantic notion.

If you’re a skier in Utah, you’ve likely heard the boom of artillery or been stuck in a buil

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