Of Earthquakes and Lakes

Our trip home from Glacier National Park intentionally took a meandering route through Big Sky Montana to West Yellowstone. It's a pretty drive as Montana, at least in the bright sun, is a beautiful State. Part of the route is along Highway 287 that takes you along the Madison River that starts in Yellowstone National Park and eventually flows into the Missouri. If you're a fisherperson, specifically a fly-fisherperson, this stretch of the Madison must come close to fishing heaven. 

We've driven this route before and were aware that we'd be going past a place called Earthquake Lake. Not having had time to really explore the area in the past we made a conscious decision this time to stop and see what this part of southeast Montana was all about. 

Late at night on August 17, 1959 the Yellowstone region experienced an earthquake. Not that unusual for the ground to move in this part of the country as Yellowstone is one of the more seismically active areas in the U.S. experiencing as many as 3,000 earthquakes a year. Most of those go unfelt but the one on August 17th definitely woke people up. It registered 7.5 on the Richter scale and occurred just before midnight and caused a massive landslide of more than 80 million tons that moved at more than 100 mph in the area just northwest of Hebgen Lake. The slide roared across the Madison River blocking it and forming a new lake that started to fill at the rate of 9 feet per day. Within a couple of weeks the new lake was five miles long and 190 feet deep. Cabins and cars were swept away. Twenty-eight men, women, and children lost their lives. A camping lodge near the river quickly evacuated their guests to higher ground (now called Refuge Point) in the middle of the night where they experienced aftershocks and as daylight broke were able to see the massive scar left by the slide in the near distance. Rocks and debris were still rolling down the hillside.

Flying by at 60 mph most of today's travelers have little awareness of the horror of that night. The earthquake also destroyed the highway cutting the survivors off and necessitating helicopters to rescue the injured the next day. Looking at the lake now one might think it looks a little strange with lots of dead trees poking out of the water but the surrounding area doesn't easily paint a picture of what happened 62 years ago. This trip we took the better part of a day exploring Earthquake Lake first by kayak and then on foot hiking the trail from Refuge Point as well as walking the Ghost Village road to the head of the lake. As my wife was walking the road she stopped to take a picture when a car stopped by and a gentleman rolled down the window. Turned out he was a survivor of the earthquake and had been sleeping in the cabin my wife was taking a picture of. Joe was kind enough to spend a couple of moments sharing insights into what happened that night so long ago. He was 15 at the time. Now living in Fort Collins, Colorado he indicated he still makes a trip back almost every year. 

There is an unmistakably eerie feeling to being out on the lake but at the same time the scenic beauty of this area takes your breath away. Here's a short video of our exploration.