Quick run to Fort Plain yesterday for parts for the milkers (inflations for you who milk cows). We took Route 5 because they just announced that it had reopened after the flood and we wanted to see what had happened that the clean up took so long. Liz drove home that way one night and called me on the phone later. She was incoherent about what she saw.
Once we got to Big Nose, so were we.
Gratuitous mild profanity erupted in its own little flood, mile after mile. (Holy S**t was the most common epithet.) Ordinary words just couldn't capture our astonishment at what had happened. The vicious flood waters carved huge channels down the flanks of that whole mountain...just scored the earth like the claws of some great beast, many feet back into the mountainside, right down to the bone and even into it..
These photos do not do justice to the vigorous new streams and water falls that splash merrily down the sides of Big Nose Mountain now. They look as if they have always been there.
I wish my Grandpa Lachmayer, who took us on many road trips down the valley on the road that curves around its steep green sides, could be alive to see. He would have enjoyed the astonishment.
Nature is powerful beyond imagination and erosion apparently does not take centuries, just a lot of water.
The boss thought he counted seven or so of these gigantic gashes in the mountainside. They went many, many feet into its sides and stretched out of sight toward the top. Can you imagine all that rock and dirt and trees and debris dumped on the roadway below? I am impressed that they got it all cleared up before freeze up.
****Just a few weeks ago this whole area was smoothly rounded and covered with forest.....
****Just a few weeks ago this whole area was smoothly rounded and covered with forest.....
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8 comments:
They say the Snake River Canyon out west was carved out in one great flood when a glacial lake's dam burst. Days, not eons. What you've got there are many mini-Snake Rivers.
I'm waiting to be able to tour Route 146....I wonder if that looks the same.
It's been closed since Tropical Storm Irene Sunday.
No wonder I've been hearing reports of rattlers in strange places - their home was washed away.
Wow!
We are too flat to get torrents like that!
I could not believe the deep ravines that where left in the side of the mountain all the way down that stretch of road! There has to be like 5 or six different places that opened right up! I have a hard time believing it.
joated, good analogy. I had no idea that it would look like it did.
June, considering that this was mild compared to what some places got, it boggles the mind. I cannot get used to the places where I used to be vegetables and fruit being just...gone...
akagaga, I would love to hear about those anecdotes about the snakes
FC, wish you could really see how deep these are...I couldn't get the angle right to demonstrate just how huge they really are
Lisa, pretty darned stunning!
I can't remember all that I've heard, but there was one up Ephratah way, a couple on Hickory Hill (which isn't all that unusual) one by Antlers, and one in Amsterdam.
Aka, thanks, I hadn't heard about them.
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