Massive Landslide off the Meager Group

[G-spotter]

Capricorn Creek puked again and blocked Meager with a landslide dam just above the Lillooet River confluence.

 

Sounds like they are considering evacuating Pemberton and Mount Currie right now.

 

Maybe not the best weekend to go up the Hurley from the south or anything like that...

[Don_Serl]

here's a link to some news:

http://www.globaltvbc.com/Video+Large+slide+near+Pemberton/3368963/story.html

 

mighty impressive! and very lucky there were no fatalities - the hotsprings are upstream from the runout for this slide. too bad the air is so smoky from all the forest fires - you can hardly see what's going on in the photos...

 

the reporter has debris at "a couple hundred feet" deep at the confluence of Meager Ck and the Lillooet R, running downstream perhaps 10km. it does sound like Lillooet River is NOT dammed up by the slide, but the good burghers of Pemberton will be drinking mud for months to come!

 

more to come, I'm sure...

[G-spotter]

Lillooet River's not dammed, but the Meager itself is and there's a lake growing quickly upstream of Capricorn Cr.

 

The question is, when it blows out, how far will the wave go downstream?

 

The historic Devastator slides of 1930s and 1970s did not send floodwaters all the way downstream to the current location of Pemberton, but there is plenty of sedimentological evidence that older (prehistoric) landslides DID send floodwaves as far as the current Pemberton town site, and indeed, all the way to Lillooet Lake.

Edited August 6, 2010 by G-spotter

[snoboy]

Always a good spot to go for landslide news:

 

Dave's Landslide Blog.

[RuMR]

Lillooet River's not dammed, but the Meager itself is and there's a lake growing quickly upstream of Capricorn Cr.

 

The question is, when it blows out, how far will the wave go downstream?

 

The historic Devastator slides of 1930s and 1970s did not send floodwaters all the way downstream to the current location of Pemberton, but there is plenty of sedimentological evidence that older (prehistoric) landslides DID send floodwaves as far as the current Pemberton town site, and indeed, all the way to Lillooet Lake.

any squids??

 

[G-spotter]

I was looking at Dave Steers' pics of the slide on Flickr this morning and it looks like a good chunk of the summit of Meager itself is gone (incl. the Rabbit Ears south of the main summit) along with half the glacier. Get out your pens and get ready to write a new summit elevation in the Fairley guide....

[G-spotter]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dbsteers/

[genepires]

damn impressive. Would be really cool to see a before and after shots of the peak. ANyway you can post that?

[wayne]

Wow, just wow. I would love to see the before shot of the mountain, seems like half the peak just fell off. How's that for an objective hazard.?

What kind of rock is that?

[murraysovereign]

What kind of rock is that?

 

Not really "rock" at all - kind of loosely unconsolidated volcanic rubbish - ash, pumice, bits of basalt here and there. You know... "choss"

[G-spotter]

 

Pat Mulrooney has some great pics, they skiied pretty much where the landslide scar is now in June... probably got the "last ascent" of the old pre-slide Meager

[ameakin]

We didn't manage to summit Meager back in June (got skunked by weather) but did ski / snowboard some lines on the North side of the upper East ridge. The top South side collapsed this past weekend. We'll be back in mid-winter when everything is frozen good..... fingers crossed. It's a mess up there, for sure.

 

Pat's pics:

[Rad]

"Frozen good" isn't going to matter if the mountainside falls down some more. Those Flickr pics are pretty amazing.

 

Don't mess with Mother Nature!

[ameakin]

Like I said... fingers crossed. There's lots more worthy winter objectives in that valley if Meager keeps moving. Thanks for props on Pat's photos.

[wayne]

new routes even