- Hope Slide
The Hope Slide (coord|49|17|56|N|121|15|49|W|) was one of the largest
landslides ever recorded inCanada . It occurred in the morning hours of9 January 1965 . An earlier, smallavalanche had forced four people to stop their vehicles a few miles southeast of the town of Hope,British Columbia (150 km east of Vancouver), on a stretch of the Hope-Princeton Highway below Johnson Peak. As those people contemplated waiting for clearing crews or turning around, a small earthquake below the mountain triggered the main slide, which obliterated the mountain's southwestern slope.The slide buried the victims and their vehicles under a torrent of 46 million cubic meters of pulverized rock, mud, and debris 85 m thick and 3 km wide, which came down the 2000-metre mountainside . This mass of debris completely displaced the lake below with incredible force, throwing it against the opposite side of the valley, wiping all vegetation and trees down to the bare rock, then 'splashed back' up the original (now bare) slope before settling.
On driving across the new highway across the debris field a traveler can only then truly appreciate the hopelessness of anyone caught in the slide's path, the massive size of the slide being reflected in the many large rocks the size of delivery trucks.
Rescue crews only found two of the four bodies—the others have remained entombed in the rock, with their cars, since 1965.
The slide, it has been decided, was caused by water eroding the connective soils to the rock base.
The highway has since been rerouted around and over the base of the slide's debris field. Most of the massive scar on the mountain face remains bare rock, without significant growth of trees or other large vegetation. It is quite easily visible from jet aircraft passing overhead.
External links
* [http://www.penmachine.com/photoessays/2004_08_aerial2/hopeslide.html Aerial photo and stereogram] of the Hope Slide
* [http://www.em.gov.bc.ca/Mining/Geolsurv/Surficial/landslid/ B.C. government landslide information]
* [http://www.knowledgenetwork.ca/slide/splash.html Slide!] , a program on B.C. Knowledge Network
* [http://www.seethefraservalley.com/hope/slide/slide.htm Views of the Hope Slide]
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