The lake above the slide was approx. 1/2 mile long and maybe 10 to 15 feet deep at the deepest.
Many of these trees burned in 2006 fires along Marsh Creek.
It was kind of fun to float among the flooded trees.
Though an intimidating horizon line, the rapid was fairly straight forward.
Like with all of the previous Middle Fork slides, the water content of the debris takes about a week to completely settle out. We sunk up to our shins when trying to walk on the fan.
Sheet flooding of finer grained sand and silt often covers the bulk of the heavier rocks and boulder deposited in these events. This gives the appearance of a "sandy" debris fan when in reality large boulder lie beneath.
A close-up of the sheet flooding silts that cover much of the fan.
This is an interesting cross section in the wall of the creek that blew out. This is a deep sand deposit that represents a historical sand bar or previous landslide event.
The heavily scoured drainage above the fan was an impressive walk that displayed the power of these blowouts.
Out of the creek bed itself, the debris sent an arm of mud and rocks to the left out onto a vegetated fan surface.
Looking down the dead end arm of mud and rocks.
You can see the lake waters in the background of this image of burned out trees and new mud deposits.
The sides of these debris flows are similar to the lateral moraines of glaciers. Heavy material such as rocks and logs are kicked out as the flow pulses past. This material builds lateral deposits that can grow to 5 or even ten feet above the old creek bed.
The toe of another dead end arm of the flow.
Looking downstream from the toe of the main fan (bottom left of the image)
Braided channels cut through the new material deposited downstream.
A composite panoramic shot showing the complete extent of the fan.
The lake above the fan.
Sinking into the sheet flood deposits.
The sheet flood deposits can look like an aerial view of some massive river delta.
