Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Landslide / Rockfall off of Mt. Irvine 7-22-14 AM

Here are some photos of the landslide / rockfall / avalanche off of Mount Irvine on the morning of 7/22/14 at just after 6am.

Talking to Doug Sr later that day back down at the store, I heard there were reports that this avalanche made it all the way down to Mirror Lake and some hikers on the main trail had to take cover.











I made them into an animated GIF:

http://makeagif.com/i/vmDPYt

The last frame is several seconds after the first set. I didn't have my camera set to ideal settings for such a thing. It was just a quick reaction.

These photos were taken from about 300 feet above Trail Camp on the sort of shelf that sticks out around the base of Wotan's Throne. Camera is pointed east. A lot of the slope there in the frame goes down towards Trailside Meadow, Mirror Lake, etc. There are some huge rocks flying down the steep slope off of Irvine. I didn't hear of anyone getting hurt and I'm certainly glad about that.

About 10:40am in the vicinity of Mirror Lake, we also heard what sounded like a thunder: a deep rumble sound that was far off. No idea what caused that sound but we presumed another landslide somewhere.

Anyone else on the main trail 7/22 have some insight or experiences to share?

-K

I was above Mirror Lake when that happened but on a steep incline and could only see the dust flying off the mountain and not the landslide itself. I could see a group watching it up ahead of me where they had a clear line of vision. And obviously I could hear the incredible noise.

Spoke to a couple who ducked for cover a couple minutes later as they were coming down and they said it was a bit scary, as you might imagine. They were starting to take pictures and then realized they had to think safety first and ducked behind a big rock with a few others. They wouldn't have been hit, but they didn't know that as it was heading for them.

Film at the JMT Facebook Page

Something like that happened between trail camp and mirror lake on my rainy descent Mon Jul 28, probably around 1-1:30p. The rocks made quite a nice racket and dust plume. The longer-traveling boulders stopped just short of the LP creek drainage separating the trail from Mt. Irvine, but at first blush they appeared to be on a direct collision course and inspired some quick scrambling for cover!