Not long ago, I was lying in bed reading when I heard a loud roar. That I heard something in this quite sound-proof house was amazing. I figured it was one of the passenger jets flying over the mountains behind my house, on approach to the airport in Anchorage.
Or a bunch of Harleys. Or a truck using its jake brake. Or the beginning audio part of an earthquake.
Not once did I think of how the mountains throw off their winter snow mantles. Not once. So, when various neighbors asked me if I"d "HEARD THAT AVALANCHE!!! (delivered with the wide eyes of someone who'd experienced something awesome), it took me a while to put that loud noise together with their descriptions of how they were awakened by THAT AVALANCHE.
We're used to avalanches around here. In the spring, especially, when warm temperatures and mountains touched by sunlight start shedding. They are quite entertaining and leave amazing patterns in the discarded snow.
 |
| These three photos are of a mountain along the Hope Road. |
Now that the mountains are greening-up with summer, the path of THAT AVALANCHE is even more impressive, because THAT AVALANCHE was not only snow. It scraped vegetation off the rock body of the mountain, wrenched shrubs and trees out by their roots, and piled them all up at the mountain's base. It essentially denuded the path it took.
No wonder it woke everyone up.
The power of all that snow crashing down the mountainside is incredible.
ReplyDeleteI've heard that roar ... once in the Day Lodge at Alyeska, about the time someone yelled "Get OUT of here, run out the door away from the mountain, NOW" and then I heard the roar. Fortunately the avalanche stopped short of the Day Lodge. The power behind that slide certainly got my attention! Patti
ReplyDeleteWOW .. What great photos. Especially the first three topmost photos. I can just 'feel' the force of the avalanche all the way over here in Mongolia. Cap and Patti ..
ReplyDelete