The Hope Slide is the largest historic landslide located in western Canada. I’ve driven past it many many times, but have never actually stopped to find out what it’s all about. Today, I made the stop and was amazing by the story.
“Early Saturday morning, January 9, 1965, an enormous landslide descended into this valley of the Nicolum Creek, destroying about 3km of the Hope-Princeton Highway.
“Apparently triggered by a minor earthquake, the slide consisting of more than 46 million cubic meters of earth, rock and snow, crashed down in seconds from the 2000 meter high mountain ridge forming the north side of the valley. It filled the valley bottom with debris 70 meters thick in places and completely buried Outram Lake at the foot of the slide.
“The water and soft clay of the lake bed and the adjacent land were displaced and cast violently up the opposite mountain side and then back into the valley, spreading out in a south easterly direction and back up the north slope to a height of 30 to 60 meters. The boundaries of the area swept by mud and slide debris are visible along the south side of the valley where the mature forest cover was wiped out leaving a scarred path. Four persons in three vehicles stopped by a small snow slide earlier, were caught in the wave of mud which swept back into the valley from the south and all were killed. Two of the victims were never found.
“Seismologists recorded two earthquakes that morning with epicenters in the Nicolum Valley area. The second of these was at 6:58 a.m., the approximate time the big slide occurred. The new highway and this viewpoint are built on slide debris approximately 55m above the original ground level.”
If you’re driving through Manning Park at any time, it’s worth the stop to see the huge-ness of this landslide. Looking up at that mountain and imagining that huge chunk of rock breaking off and tumbling down made me feel incredibly small.
The Hope Slide is located here: