New slide activity

I was wondering if with all this rain this summer if any body out there has noticed any new slides opening up. I live in the Burlington Vt. area and we have had more than twice the normal rainfall this July. It also has seemed to me that most of the really heavy rains have fallen to the southwest over the adk's. Looking at radar images on a somewhat daily basis have shown thunderstorms hitting the high peaks consistently with significant rainfalls, and this weekend seems to be following the same pattern. All this moisture must have the ground saturated and there is not much soil to work with in the adk's. I'm hoping that this wet pattern keeps up. For one it will eventually have to cause some new slides and two if the pattern keeps up into winter it will coat those beautiful slides with manna from heaven for us to play in. So keep an eye out for new skiable terrain on a mountain near you and let me know what you see. E-mail : [email protected]

Slides tend to occur, not during rainy times, but during a sudden rain folllowing very dry times. Notice how, when the earth becomes very dry, it tends to shrink somewhat, and lift off from the bedrock. When a sudden rain occurs, there usually isn't enough time for everything to absorb the water and expand.

The last few big slides in the Adirondacks occurred in just tehse conditions (Wright & Colden) It had been an extremely dry summer. There were fires around (noonmark/beardean), then Floyd hit with its heavy rains.

Note that in places like California they have a whole nuther set of rules.

It was so wet yesteday on the blue trail to wallface ponds that the trail was significantly more eroded on the way out than on the way in. That trail could use some water bars.

Thanks Pete for the info on the dynamics of adks slides. I've always assumes that most slides occur from saturation. the only slides we see in Vermont are from this process. I can imagine the roots of the beloved cripplebrush trying to ration available water to the main stem much the same way a human body reacts to frostbite. Call it sick but I love skiing adks slides so I can only hope that there are more of them each year. I imagine that eventualy saturation will play a role so with the lack of drought conditions I can only hope for saturation to take effect. The only really big descents around here without trees are the slides, NH has some I admit , mostly around a 1000' but they are an extra hour or more away. Trap Dyke is close to 2000' and so is Nippletop, and then there is Basin, Giant, Dix, and don't forget Gothics. All hard to get to but worth every step. I can only hope that these slide areas continue to grow and new ones open up.

hillman1 said:

It was so wet yesteday on the blue trail to wallface ponds that the trail was significantly more eroded on the way out than on the way in. That trail could use some water bars.

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That trail could use a lot moer than waterbars, but I wouldn't expect to see them ni the hear future. Its a relatively expensive trail to work on, and it is little used.

I'm a 46er now, I haven't sent in any forms yet though. I would gladly volunteer for the work crews for that trail, or any other.