Johannesburg avalanche

[philfort]

Was anyone in the Cascade Pass area last Saturday morning, and did you see the huge avalanche that came off Johannesburg? From our vantage in Eldorado creek, it looked like it was an avalanche of water!

We'd heard several booms earlier in the morning but there wasn't much to see - this one was louder however, and when we looked over, there was a raging torrent flowing over the 800ft cliff at the base of the north face. Hard to tell if it was snow or water, but it was producing spray, wasn't chunky, and didn't seem to be accumulating in the run-out zone (although the run-out zone was partially hidden from our view). It continued with a huge (like niagara falls size) noisy flow for about 20 seconds, then at a lesser rate for another couple of minutes before stopping completely. Biggest, noisiest thing I've ever seen coming off of Big J. Could it have been water released from the glacier? Anyone get a better view of it?

[Self_propelled]

We were at Boston Basin and Sahale all day Saturay and Sunday. It looked like the sideways hook shaped glacier about midway up J'burg is what was active. There was a lot of newly exposed blue glacier ice. We heard and saw calving all weekend long.

[ScottP]

The first time I went into Boston Basin, we arrived at the trail head after dark, so decided to sleep there. Sometime during the night I was awakened by the sound of the world coming to the end. By the time it was over, I was standing in the middle of the road with my headlamp sweeping about trying to find out what it was that was about to bury me. It wasn't until the sun came up (after not sleeping for the rest of the night) that I looked up to see the source of the midnight terror.

[Beck]

Ice dam burst under the glacier, prob.

Glacier settles, active calving.

[Fairweather]

If you look at those hanging glaciers today and compare them to the photos in Becky's guide you can note the dramatic recession in just the last few (20?) years.