Fifty years ago Rick and his family were camping in Montana near the Madison River in the Gallatin National Forest. His family was camping with their red and white 1955 Aljoa travel trailer. Rick wasn't even a teenager yet, but he remembers the summer trip of 1959. Before Earthquake Lake was formed.
They had been at the campground for a couple days, had visited Yellowstone National Park, and planned to go on to Grand Teton National Park. They left the Rock Creek campground by the Madison River and continued with their vacation, moving on to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. While in Jackson on August 18th, they saw the newspaper headline saying the largest recorded earthquake in the Rocky Mountain states (7.5) had brought down the side of the mountain over the campground near where they had been camped, killing 28 people with many more injured. The rock and dirt buried the sleeping campers and the wind created by the slide also caused the river to carry away buildings, vehicles and other victims. The mountain collapse was tremendous and dammed up the Madison River causing the water to quickly backup, starting the creation of Earthquake Lake, commonly referred to as Quake Lake. The deadly jolt caused the land to shift and the water behind Hebgen Lake moved so much it sloshed over the top of the dam. The area roads were distroyed and people were air-lifted out. It was a huge tragedy and the eerily quiet, dead and half-submerged trees in the lake still are a reminder of what happened.
We had been there a few times before, years ago, but with the upcoming anniversary we had to stop again at the visitors center overlooking the scared slide area and lake. The visitors center was focused on the upcoming anniversary and had many events and speakers planned to commemorate the disaster. The local news agencies are also remembering the date with stories and photos and are easy to find on the Internet.
News article: http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20090816/NEWS01/90816001/1002/Hebgen-Lake-earthquake-anniversary-unleashes-flood-of-memories
These are photos from our recent trip.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
50 years ago Quake Lake happened
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