Oregon Hikers

Since Rabid Swan's great report of his trip to the Bandit Boulder I've heard it calling my name! I've marveled at it's size many times when looking down on it from the top of Cooper Spur but now I knew I couldn't rest until I'd touched it!

Chiyoko thought this was one of my loonier ideas not understanding why anyone would want to go on a long hike to find a boulder! I think most of my usual Sunday hiking budies also thought the same thing as the only other person who came along was Chizuru! I endured much teasing along the way "Won't this boulder do?" "What about this one?".

We set off from the Elk Meadows trailhead, knowing that both Chizuru & Chiyoko just love old ropes & dodgy creek crossings we went by way of the upper Newton Creek Crossing





We soon reached the top of Gnarl Ridge.



& began the off trail part of our adventure.





At about 7,650' we reached our goal & Chizuru had a well deserved sit down!



An incredible area to explore!





Sadly I can't claim an ascent as Rabid Swan did, no way I was going to be able to get my beer addled body up that!


Hang on I'm coming!

After a good look around it was time to head for home





Back at the trailhead the GPS had clocked 13.6 miles & 3850'. I returned with a great sense of accomplishment, Chiyoko & Chizuru returned with their initial thoughts about me confirmed ..

A few more as yet unsorted pics of the day here.

& a short Bandit Boulder Movie below!

http://youtu.be/gwyhVYJfNsY

That is amazing! And totally worth the trek! Thanks for sharing.

That's a big rock. But a worthy destination!

Guy wrote:Chiyoko thought this was one of my loonier ideas not understanding why anyone would want to go on a long hike to find a boulder!
I returned with a great sense of accomplishment, Chiyoko & Chizuru returned with their initial thoughts about me confirmed

LOL but I suppose sometimes a lot of the fun is in the journey, not the destination. At least for some. I love the pictures of the ladies holding up the boulder. It sounds a bit breezy in the video - how was the wind up there?

Thanks, Guy -- I needed that! I've been holed up with a bad bug this week, so spent yesterday cleaning the garage and daydreaming about what the rest of you were doing up on the mountain..! This report exceeded my various daydreams! I've obsessed with this rock for awhile, too.

You probably remember the Thomas/Fred traverse of the Newton Clark Glacier for a couple of years ago -- scroll down, and you can see a photo that Fred took in 2001 that gives excellent detail of the rockfall (which happened that year):

Fred & Thomas Newton Clark Adventure

It's one of the best photos I've seen (including the Oregonian photo, which I have somewhere...). Adams had a similar major rockfall on its east face a couple years later, as I recall, so I guess WyEast still has that rivalry going with Klickitat, even though Loowit has lost her youthful curves...

Great report! Kudos to Chiyoko and Chizuru for putting up with you..!

(nice theme music, by the way -- enjoyed the video, too!)

Tom

Did some digging...
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MASSIVE ROCK SLIDE SCARS MOUNT HOOD
The Oregonian
Saturday, September 1, 2001
By RICHARD L. HILL

The veteran hikers both spotted the mile-long rock avalanche on separate hikes during the past few weeks. Free-lance photographer Darryl Lloyd was fascinated enough to fly above the peak to take close-up pictures.

"It was impressive," said Lloyd, a former mountain-climbing guide. "There are a few house-size boulders on the surface" of the dark avalanche, which contrasts sharply with the gleaming surface of the Newton Clark Glacier that it crosses.

Richard Iverson, a landslide expert with the U.S. Geological Survey, confirmed the new avalanche Thursday after flying over the 11,240-foot volcano.

"This kind of event hasn't happened on Hood in the past couple of decades," said Iverson, a hydrologist with the Geological Survey's Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Wash. "It's not as big as it appears, because it laps on top of a deposit from an older, larger rock avalanche that evidence indicates occurred in the 1930s."

No one knows when the avalanche occurred, but Iverson speculates it swept down the mountain in the past two weeks. He said it might have been caused by recent heavy rainfall or the rapid thawing of ice and snow that loosened the crumbly rock.

Scientists don't think an earthquake caused the avalanche, although more than a dozen small quakes -- the largest a magnitude 1.3 -- have been detected on the mountain's southeast side in the past two weeks. Such sporadic quake flurries are common beneath the mountain.

The landslide starts at about the 10,000-foot level and ends just off the edge of the glacier. It's about a quarter-mile wide at its widest point.

Iverson and Lloyd say the slide is much smaller than the massive avalanche that swept down the southeast side of Mount Adams in October 1997.

The rock avalanche isn't similar to the glacial outburst floods that swept mud and debris down Mount Rainier earlier in August. Those debris flows are caused by warm summer temperatures melting glacial ice, with the water accumulating inside or under a glacier before being suddenly released. Debris below the glacier is incorporated quickly into the water, creating a slurry dense enough to float boulders.

In September and October last year, a combination of heavy rain and warm temperatures triggered a flood from the White River and Newton Clark glaciers on Mount Hood . The water destroyed two sections of Oregon 35 east of the mountain.

The most recent event shows that rock avalanches are a hazard on Mount Hood .

"It's a reminder that there is a considerable mass of rock up there that is probably weak enough that something considerably larger could occur," Iverson said. "And these small ones are good for being a head's up for thinking about that."

You can reach Richard L. Hill at [email protected] or 503-221-8238.

...and that other event, though my recollection of the sequence was reversed -- Klickitat threw the first punch:
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AVALANCHE RIPS PATH DOWN PEAK
The Oregonian
September 10, 1997
By Terry Richard

Scientists have begun studying the cause and effect of a recent debris avalanche on Washington's Mount Adams, the largest on the mountain since 1921.

A slide estimated to contain one million cubic meters of altered rock slid down the southwest side of the volcano around 2 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 30, according to Richard M. Iverson, a landslide and debris flow specialist for the U.S. Geological Survey.

Iverson, based in the Vancouver, Wash., office, estimated the slide's rocks and mud would rise 1,000 feet over the area of a football field. cover a football field 1,000 feet deep.

The slide began just beneath the mountain's 12,276-foot summit on the upper slopes of the White Salmon and Avalanche glaciers. Debris slid 6,000 feet and three miles down the Avalanche Glacier, stopping about a quarter-mile above the Round the Mountain Trail. No one was injured and no damage was reported to recreational facilities, according to officials of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.

``If something like this happened on Mount Hood , there would be five hours of live TV coverage,'' said Tom Knappenberger, spokesman for the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. ``Because it happened on Mount Adams, nobody heard about it for a week.''

Iverson learned of the landslide Tuesday -- nine days after it occurred -- and immediately made an aerial reconnaissance of Mount Adams, the second highest mountain in Washington and visible from Portland on clear days.

``I spent about an hour in the air over the mountain,'' said Iverson, a 13-year employee of the USGS. ``It was quite spectacular, really. The debris should be visible from the ground from just about anywhere on that side of the mountain.''

The landslide occurred near the same location as the 1921 slide, which Iverson estimated as four to five times larger. Mount Adams has produced much larger slides in the past, including one 6,000 years ago that traveled 35 miles to the present site of Husum.

The most recent larger rock slide in the Cascade Mountains occurred in 1963 on Little Tahoma, a subpeak of Mount Rainier.

The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, Iverson said, produced a slide at least a thousand times larger than the recent one on Mount Adams.

``The Mount St. Helens slide was triggered by a volcanic eruption,'' Iverson said. ``The one on Mount Adams showed no signs of earthquake or volcanic activity.''

The upper slopes of Mount Adams where the slide began is an area of weak rock covered by snow and ice.

``It's more like soil than rock,'' Iverson said. ``It's not uncommon for rock avalanches to slide without any particular trigger. There's no real obvious explanation. Sometimes these things just happen.

``During the week prior to the slide, we had had our first rain in quite a while. Having so much water in the snowpack could very well have been a contributing factor.''

Iverson will be studying the debris to determine how much snow and ice came down, compared to the estimated volume of rocky material.

``The whole issue of how snow and ice mixes with solid material is very interesting,'' Iverson said. ``When a lot of ice melts, the debris becomes more fluid and flows a greater distance. This didn't seem to be the case here.''

Iverson said the Mount Adams slide will not become particularly famous because it didn't cause any damage to people or man-made structures.

``It shows that these mountains are very active geologically,'' he said. ``Even though this was not an eruption, people need to be aware that these mountains are not a static landscape.''

Darryl Lloyd, who lives on the east side of Mount Adams outside the town of Glenwood, was one of the first to visit the slide. Lloyd examined the debris from three vantage points Sept. 1. He said the slide tore apart the glacier, leaving a gouge from 500 to 1,000 feet wide and 50 to 100 feet deep.

Lloyd found a good viewpoint of the slide atop a knob on Crofton Ridge, which runs southwest from Mount Adams.

To reach this spot, hikers would travel north three miles from the Morrison Creek trailhead on Mount Adams' south side to the junction with the Round the Mountain Trail.Hike The viewpoint is a quarter-mile hike along a treeless ridge south from the trail junction. for a quarter mile along a treeless ridge to reach the viewpoint. It is recorded as 6,227 feet high on the Mount Adams Wilderness Area Map.

``It's a wonderful little spot,'' Lloyd said. ``You can look directly into the throat of the slide.''

Knappenberger said the U.S. Forest Service has no plans to issue a warning for hikers to avoid the area.

Thanks for all that digging Tom,

Even though it's 12 years ago now there is still a feeling of it being very fresh & I must confess to a slight uneasiness when sitting down next to the Boulder for lunch. I wouldn't put my tent up there!

But it's not just a boulder. It's a really cool boulder! I also had a similar calling for that boulder perched on Barrett Spur. Sometimes you just have to see it up close. Great Photos!

I also had a similar calling for that boulder perched on Barrett Spur.

You mean this one



Yeah it's on my Boulder Pilgrimage list too, it's so cool because you can see it from so many other places!

Are these damn things waypointed!?!

Love your boulder series Guy!

Quote of the year = "Old ropes and dodgy creek crossings"