Terrain Can Bite You

[Bart_]

I'm sure you've all seen some news coverage of the mountain peak/glacier tongue failure in China/Nepal that caused a debris flow compounding into a valley bottom river stream - inaccurately called a flash flood.

I once innocently explored gravel and rock beds/slopes that were results of such slides in the rockies around Whistler. I was clueless as to possible instability. Also empty dry or with a small trickle ravine rock gardens with huge boulders and logs scattered all over - gee I wonder how they got there?

On flash floods and ravines - I was once on a dirtbike ride in Nevada where we followed in a mini valley carved out by flash flood waters. If a storm hit just right/wrong upstream we would have all been completely effed. I was told stories about rock climbers/hikers who were aware of such risks in the bigger ravine rock features they went in.

The winter correspondence is high country snow avalanches.

 

[Reach]

I have seen that news, living out here in Pennsylvania landslides and flash floods are not really something that happened, so it's hard to fathom the concept.

I have an aunt who lives outside Tucson Arizona, there is a fairly large dry wash across the end of her driveway. A couple times a year, when it rains up in the mountains, they will get a flash flood and the wash will turn into a river big enough to wash a car away if they were to try to cross it when the water is running. That amazes me, especially since the wash can start running when the sky is clear or mostly clear at her house. The water just comes right on through like a dam broke, from what I am told. No warning, except the weather forecast for rain up in the mountains.