wordsfromanneli

Thoughts, ideas, photos, and stories.

The Hope Slide

31 Comments

About 100 miles east of Vancouver, BC, lies the town of Hope. From here the highway winds through a beautiful stretch of hilly country for 82 miles to the town of Princeton.

Just about 10 miles east of Hope is a viewpoint where I took some photos of the second largest landslide in Canadian history. The Hope Slide came down the mountain on January 9, 1965, burying several vehicles and killing four people. The bodies of two were retrieved, but two others remain buried beneath tons of rock.

I quote Wikipedia here: The slide completely displaced the water and mud in Outram Lake below with incredible force, throwing it against the opposite side of the valley, wiping all vegetation and trees down to the bare rock, then splashed back up the original, now bare, slope before settling.

I see no indication of an Outram Lake on modern maps, but there is an Outram Mountain nearby.

About a mile and a half of the highway was covered in rock, so a gravel road was constructed as a detour until a new section of highway could be built. A portion of the old highway still lies under the slide.

One sweet thing about this whole sad story is that beside the viewpoint, masses of wild strawberries are growing in the moss that covers the gritty gravel beside the road.

 

Author: wordsfromanneli

Writing, travel, photography, nature, more writing....

31 thoughts on “The Hope Slide

  1. Beauty Born Of Tragedy 😦 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  2. That was some landslide! There was one here somewhat like that but I haven’t found any history on it.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Mother Nature is a beautiful soul.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. The brute force and power of nature unleashed!

    Like

  5. Thanks for sharing the history of the slide, Anneli. Beautiful photographs!

    Liked by 1 person

  6. Hope clearly lives up to its name. Beautiful, Anneli!

    Liked by 1 person

  7. You describe the landslide so well, Anneli. Wow! Interesting to hear what the momentum and force of it created, and all these years later the Hope Slide is so visible, still. I imagine there are still people who can tell the story firsthand…

    Liked by 1 person

  8. I was unaware of the tragic background of this beautiful spot.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Scary and then I always worry how many animals were harmed, too. But I’ve never heard the term “slide” used instead of landslide so that kind of tickled me.

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Driven by her many times. Force of nature, immense.

    Like

  11. The power of nature always astounds!

    Liked by 1 person

  12. The BC area is my dream vacation (and into Alaska). Too bad I’m afraid to fly. 😝

    Liked by 1 person

  13. Pingback: Slip Sliding Away | wordsfromanneli

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