The Hope Slide

Early Saturday morning, January 9, 1965, an enormous landslide descended into the Nicolum Creek valley, destroying about 3 km of the Hope-Princeton Highway. Apparently triggered by a minor earthquake, the slide, consisting of more than 46 million cubic metres of earth, rock and snow, crashed down in seconds from the 2000 metre high mountain ridge forming the north side of the valley. It filled the valley bottom with debris 70 metres 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 mountainside and then back into the valley, spreading out in a southeasterly direction and back up the north slope to a height of 30 to 60 metres. 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. Seismographs recorded two earthquakes that morning with epicentres 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 55 m above the original ground level.

British Columbia · Canada