climbing during an earthquake?

[Water]

dust cloud in mnts

 

found this pretty impressive. suffice to say i would not have wanted to be even camping anywhere in those mountains during this, aside from it being mexico and near the border..

[NateF]

holy cow. there was an account in Accidents in NA Mtr'g a while back from someone climbing during an earthquake, I think they were on the N face of Baring. maybe during the nisqually quake? anyone know who that was?

[MarkMcJizzy]

Unlikely that it was Baring, the Nisqually quake was in February. It could have been Rob Cobb and partner on Lovin' arms

[RJRiha]

Maybe the Animal will pipe up with his story of a mountaintop bivy during the big earthquake of the 00/01 time frame.

[kinnikinnick]

i was just thinking about this. as i remember, the nisqually was during a period of high pressure. anyone have stories?

[Jake_Gano]

Not my story, but a good read:

http://www.alaskaiceclimbing.com/tales.htm

[jshamster]

I was on Godzilla during the nisqually quake. Full account ins in ANAM and the Everet Herald, and posted on this board a couple of times.

[RuMR]

Unlikely that it was Baring, the Nisqually quake was in February. It could have been Rob Cobb and partner on Lovin' arms

partner was Frankie Huster

[ScottP]

Rob said Frankie screamed like a little girl and then demanded to bail after it was all over. He also said that the wall was undulating and shit was coming down all over the place, but that not so much as a grain of sand landed where they were standing, on the ledge at the top of Davis-Holland.

[John_Scurlock]

Some years ago I was at a UW talk by Reinhold Messner during which he described being up high in the Himalaya when a large earthquake struck. I recall his description of many snow avalanches.

 

I have long thought that certain NC features are likely the result of huge earthquakes. The great rockslide on the Eldorado Creek approach to Eldo comes to mind. There's a gigantic old landslide part way up Thunder Creek that could easily have been earthquake triggered. No specific scientific evidence on these, though.

[wayne]

I believe the massive earthquake of 1872 (7.3 r.s.) caused "The Fracture " Just south of Fury, And caused a huge chunk of Challenger summit to calve. I

[MarkMcJizzy]

The effects of this earthquake was studied long and hard as part of the BWIP (Basalt waste isolation project) at Hanford. It was never clear how severe this earthquake was. The rockfall on Highway 97 north of Wenatchee was often subscribed to this quake, but that may be in error. There are a number of large teetering blocks in the Cascades and Okannogan highlands which are known to have survived the 1872 event, which puts the magnitude and epicenter into question.

 

Neotectonics is constantly evolving, and could still be considered to be in its infancy, even in the Puget lowlands. Your hypotheses may very well be correct. It is safe to assume that the study of neotectonics in highly complex alpine terrane is at the most, in the fetal stage.

[zma]

I took the day off work and Frankie and i decided on Davis /Holland

for a fun spring day route. Both of us were on the big ledge top of pitch 3, when the earthquake struck. The entire wall was shaking so violently that it would have been difficult to stand on the ledge unattached. Frankie was visible upset, and wanted to rap off during the quake. He did not scream like a girl. He showed the proper amount of fear staring at almost certain death from rock fall. There were large rocks falling from the wall on both sides of us. Nothing hit the ledge we were on. This didn't scare me as baddly as the Half-dome rock fall with Scott P.

[treknclime]

I was snowshoeing down the Kahiltna Glacier with a group, after a trip up the W Buttress, when a quake hit. We were just below Kahiltna Pass...when large chunks of ice fell off all sides of the the glacier walls, off every face. Not super huge icefalls, but big enough to make one stop and wonder what was going on. We paused for a moment, and then guessed we had just witnessed the effects of an earthquake. We didn't feel anything while walking, since we were moving along at a pretty good clip, dealing with the sleds and the route.

 

Upon return to BC, we confirmed it was a quake. Kind of an eerie experience, actually. It was soo quite just before it happened, and then noise from all directions.

[Fairweather]

On 31 May 1970, the Ancash earthquake caused a substantial part of the north side of the mountain [Huascaran] to collapse. The block of ice and rocks was about 1 mile long, half a mile wide, and half a mile deep. In about five minutes it flowed 11 miles to Yungay, burying the entire town under ice and rock, and causing the deaths of more than 20,000 people. Also buried by the avalanche was a Czechoslovakian mountaineering team [15 climbers], none of whose members was ever seen again.

[Off_White]

I was leading a pitch about 2/3 of the way up The Mouth on Glacier Point Apron in Yosemite during the big quakes there, 1980 or so? The crack I was in seemed to scream, but nothing came down near us. Across the way, a railroad freight car fell out of the ridge of Grizzly Peak, turned a bunch of Ponderosa Pines into dust, and plowed into the Happy Isles Trail Center. We could hear folks screaming for help down that way. We finished the route.

 

There were a bunch of folks climbing that day, a buddy was on top of the Folly after doing the Good Book. The Folly is a 4 or 5 pitch tall flake, and the anchor at the top is bolts on the main wall above the top of the flake. He watched the tip of that flake move from side to side, and the party below watched their cams flex in an out. El Cap was covered in bailing people afterwards, and there were lots of rockfalls all over the valley. Amazingly, I don't think anyone died.

 

The descent gully on Middle Cathedral was totally swept, if anyone had been in it they would be dead for sure. We descended that way from E Butt of Middle later that week, and there were impact scars all over, every square foot in places. The small trees had had their bark stripped off by the passing of all the rockfall, and everything was covered in grit. It was as spooky a descent as I've ever made.

 

There was a substantial aftershock too, but it happened earlyish in the morning. I got bounced around on the ground, waking me up as the VW van next to me rolled back and forth and the trees in the Pines campground all swayed.

 

Mt St Helens was acting up at the time too, so the weather report at the kiosk in Camp 4 read, "Thunderstorms, Earthquakes, Possible Volcanic Ash"

[ScottP]

This didn't scare me as baddly as the Half-dome rock fall with Scott P.

 

That's when I screamed like a little girl.

[dberdinka]

if being on the UTW during a quake wasn't nearly as bad as rockfall on Half-Dome, WTF happened? Do tell. It sounds spicy.

[zma]

I guess the difference was one was a natural event, the other was a bunch of idiot tourons tossing huge rock from the summit of Half-dome. I felt like I had front row seats to the end of the world on the upper wall that day at Index. On half dome I felt like I was going to die a pointless death due to a bunch of idiots. The rock fall on Half-dome lasted forever. Huge rock after rock exploded on the wall above us and rained down pieces. To this day I have never been as scared as I was that day.

[ScottP]

You could see long strings of rock dust explosions as the rocks repeatedly bounced off the wall.

[NateF]

jeebemus, those are some stories, the UTW tale sounds like what I was recalling from ANAM. I think Messner recounts his tale in his book Solo:Nanga Parbat, about his (2nd I think) solo attempt of the diamir face on nanga parbat. earthquake caused an avalanche which swept the lower portion of his ascent route below him (also his planned descent route). great book, really delves into his thoughts and doubts throughout.