Tuesday morning, July 31 and we were off again.
We left the camp ground and headed out on MT 87 then turned right on US 287 toward West Yellowstone. We came upon the site of the earthquake that occurred in 1959.
From all accounts it was a beautiful moonlit night, August 17, 1959, when one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded on the North American continent struck the Madison River Canyon.
The earthquake, which measured 7.5 on the Richter scale, triggered a massive landslide, which sent over 80 million tons of rock crashing down the canyon, blocking the Madison River. The water backed up behind the rocks, forming the new Earthquake Lake. High velocity winds and a gigantic wall of water swept
through the area.In a matter of seconds, the earth's crust had dropped 19 feet. The land under nearby Hebgen Lake (upstream from the quake area) tilted upward; cabins on the north shore were immersed in water, while portions of the south shore lay high and dry. Water sloshed back and forth, while huge waves crested over Hebgen Dam at the western end of the lake. Although the dam cracked, it miraculously held.
Three sections of Highway 287 fell into the lake.
As a result of the night's disaster, hundreds of people vacationing in the area were trapped. A total of 28 lives were lost.The slide dammed the Madison River to form Earthquake Lake, which filled in three weeks and created a new body of water 190 feet deep and 6 miles long. The dead trees left in the lake are a reminder of the Gallatin National Forest that used to be here.
The "Ghost Village" is still visible along the lake where the remains of the cabins that the water carried away from their original sites.
In Yellowstone National Park near Old Faithful, the earthquake damaged the Old Faithful Inn, forcing guests there to evacuate. Landslides caused by the quake blocked a road between Mammoth Hot Springs in the north and Old Faithful in the south, and damaging several bridges inside the park. Several geysers in the northwestern sections in Yellowstone National Park erupted and numerous hot springs became temporarily muddied.
It was rather eerie to see the empty cabins left along the banks of the lake, along with the trees sticking up out of the water.
The 1959 earthquake is comparable to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake as of the the strongest in North America, behind the 1964 magnitude 9.2 Good Friday Earthquake in Alaska.
You just never know what you may discover traveling this great country!!
Love to all for now,
Candy and Johnny
