Don, Ardith and I met up today to check out the landslide Chubby FM had found east of Table Mountain, up close and personal. Unbelievable sight… you can't even begin to imagine what this must of sounded like. Don is going to follow up with the USGS and see what kind of information they have on this huge slide. With this slide, there seems to have been 3 new Falls created that are all feed from springs. The upper 3 slides drop atleast 100 feet or more and converge on the second shelf created from the slide, a second drop occurs here and drops another 100 feet or so where then it slides down another drop about 50 feet or more.

The overall destruction was incredible to see… Here are some pictures from the day.

There's Don after scaling the twisted wood pile





















I walked up to this tree after this shot and the trunk was probably as tall as me width wise, 6ft.
and the root system was at least double that…







This was only about a quarter of the way up looking back down where we started, and only the left side of the slide











if you look hard you can see Don to the left of the pine tree by the big boulder. Gives a good sense of the size of things.




This is a shot mid way up looking at the right side of the slide.




Beautiful scenery despite the destruction…




Is that a Mountain Goat? ooohh it's Don Nelsen…





Here's another shot of that purple mountain goat I kept seeing… Man he moves fast.

I must point out to anyone who dares to venture here to check this out, my advice is stay to either side of the slide area, this is VERY unstable and my guess is there will be another slide very soon. You don't want to be caught in the middle if it decides to go again.





Here is shot showing the 3 new upper falls. Upper Greenleaf Falls would be top left of this photo.





This is a good parting shot, a twisted bundle of trees in the middle of the debris field. An island unto itself.





Gorge Geology in action… thanks again guys, and thanks Chubby FM for spotting this great find.

Cheers / Jamie

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When going back makes sense, you are going ahead.
- Wendell Berry

This is absolutely fantastic--living geology! Yet it is miniscule compared what happened when Table Mountain gave way and created the "Bridge of the Gods" legend.

I was told some years back that the whole debris field from the Table Mountain landslide (between Table and Wind Mountains) is still moving, and what you found is proof!

I'm surprised the media didn't find out about this--obviously it's a "scoop" for PortlandHikers.org!!! I'll be really interested in what you find out from the USGS!

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May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.--E.Abbey

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one around with a purple jacket (mine is an ulralight windshirt) that was on sale!

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May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.--E.Abbey

WOW!!! That's amazing!! As you know, I love this stuff, Jamie - excellent photos and AWESOME scenes! My immediate reaction was that this slide so closely resembles a debris flow on Hood a few years ago -- I don't want to hijack your thread until everyone has had a chance to absorb your photos, but I'll post a couple of the Hood pics later. The similarities are uncanny!

I'm glad you guys didn't hang there for too long. The energy that triggered the slide has probably dissipated for now, but there will be loose rocks dropping for months (if not years) from an event of this magnitude... don't want to get beaned with a basketball sized "pebble"..!

Those water slides are cool, but look highly unstable. It will be interesting watching what they do over time - most likely, erode very quickly into what looks to be poorly consolidated mudflow strata, along the lines of the Eagle Creek formation. That layer has been wreaking havoc on the Washington side for some time, giving us the mammoth collapse that is now the Wauna lobe and "Bridge of the Gods". Cool to see this stuff still in motion.

As they say, Mother Nature bats last!

-Tom

Jamie, after staring at your pics a bit, I went back to look at some photos I took of Table Mountain from across the river last weekend - sure enough, you can see the slide (I think). I've John Maddenized this photo to where I think the slide is. Is that right?




I cropped downtown Stevenson into the photo for reference - that's the Skamania County Courthouse on the right. I can't imagine somebody down there (and maybe at the Skamania Lodge) wouldn't have HEARD this!

-Tom

Great TR - I wonder how much will keep going...  Was there much still falling while you were there?

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- Lindsay

    That's the spot Tom. I gotta say I was getting the willey's when traversing up the middle of the debri field, thinking about exactly what you mentioned earlier. I have some detail shots of the where the slide took place and it is all a layered mix of rock and dirt.

The contour this ran down resembled a big slide with 3 big drops… pretty amazing. I have more shots and will be posting to my flikr account. I'll pass along the link when it is up.

Cheers

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When going back makes sense, you are going ahead.
- Wendell Berry

Crazy stuff!  Makes you wonder how fast the event was or if we are actually looking at the results of a series of slides that everyone missed.  Does anyone know if there were any trails through there before?  It's sobering to think of something like that washing down on you.

There were no trails in the landslide area but the slide covers about 600 feet of the old logging road that we hiked in on. The bottom end of the slide is a jumbled mass of trees, roots and rocks that is from 20' to over 40' high in places.  here's a pic of the slide from where the road now ends:

 

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"If I had known I was going to live this long I'd have taken better care of myself" - anon

    Don did you get a chance yet to plot the area of the slide or have rough numbers of area?

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When going back makes sense, you are going ahead.
- Wendell Berry

Splintercat:

Jamie, after staring at your pics a bit, I went back to look at some photos I took of Table Mountain from across the river last weekend - sure enough, you can see the slide (I think). I've John Maddenized this photo to where I think the slide is. Is that right?
I cropped downtown Stevenson into the photo for reference - that's the Skamania County Courthouse on the right. I can't imagine somebody down there (and maybe at the Skamania Lodge) wouldn't have HEARD this! -Tom

Tom,

Yes, that's the slide in your photo.  I went back and took a closer look at the photos I took from Table Mountain on Jan. 6th and the slide was there then. It was snowing and the visibility wasn't good so I didn't pay that much attention to the scene below. I agree, someone should have heard this thing. Also, it appears to me to have been all one event rather than several smaller ones and with rocks and trees that big moving as fast as they must have, the noise would have been tremendous. 90% of the slide area was mature second growth and even some old growth - I counted at least five trees with diameters over four feet and one close to six feet.

The slide covers about 40 acres, is 750 feet wide in the middle, fell 830 vertical feet and ran out about half a mile. Here's a map of the area: The green line is the track of the hike, the red line the boundary of the slide.

 

Here's a photo I took from the area above the waterfall/springs as far up the cliff face as I could get:

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"If I had known I was going to live this long I'd have taken better care of myself" - anon

WOW!!!! Thanks for the trip report and photos. Kudos to all of you for braving this!

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Greg Lief
LiefPhotos.com
OregonWildflowers.org

    Here's a link to more of the photos from our trip. I still have 100 or more to cull through but this group has some good detail shots and some different angles of the new falls.

Tom the far left fall is probably going to be the one that survives, it has 3 good drops and is defined by boulders and rocks on both sides already, those 2 upper right falls are each in position to take more hits from the crumbly cliffs above.

heres the link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jchabot/sets/72157604038241625/

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When going back makes sense, you are going ahead.
- Wendell Berry

vienturia:

Great TR - I wonder how much will keep going...  Was there much still falling while you were there?

I didn't see anything fall while I was there but everything is very loose and even some of the car-sized boulders moved when I stepped on them. It was very spooky being below the cliffs when I traversed the ledge above the spring/waterfalls. I would not be surprised if another slide happened soon on these same cliffs and I have much more appreciation for the potential for slides.

Here's a close-up of the cliff face where it appears most of the slide material originated. Layers of broken basalt with deep layers of loose rocks and dirt mixed in.

 

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"If I had known I was going to live this long I'd have taken better care of myself" - anon

Grannyhiker:

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one around with a purple jacket (mine is an ulralight windshirt) that was on sale!

Actually, it's a shirt! It was gift from my son from a few years ago - I think he might have thought the tans and browns and greens of most of my hiking gear was too boring. I guess if I ever go missing, I'll be easier to spot from the air!

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"If I had known I was going to live this long I'd have taken better care of myself" - anon