Geo 730: June 12, Day 528: Looking Back

I was seat-buckled in, so I couldn't exactly crane out the window to look back myself... but my camera could. Most of the photos I took in the work area were too blurry to be of any interest, but despite the weird angle of this one, you can see the runout of the rock fall crossed the road, apparently took out the guard rail, and went down the river bank. Western Oregon's mild, wet climate, combined with the rapidly weathering sediments in the Coast Range, and mixed volcanics and sediments in the Cascades, means that various forms of mass movement are a constant threat along transportation corridors in rugged areas. Once, it seemed nuts to me that so much money was spent to build and maintain roads in areas like this, where one can confidently predict there will be a road closure at least once a year, on average. However, the economic and social benefits of having dependable mobility between cities and towns is likely multiple times the costs involved.

Photo unmodified. March 9, 2012. FlashEarth location (Fairly confident about this one, but not certain).