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So this happened yesterday.....
Massive rock slide on Sunday. We travelled along the road on Saturday coming from Val d'Isere.
Spoke to a local today whose hobby it is filming the local stream come flood channel. He was at the site of the landslide today filming for his YouTube channel when a French TV news team turned up and decided to interview him. Whilst being interviewed another load of rock behind him started breaking off and came crashing to the valley floor.
The mountains here are made up mostly of slatey rock. The geezer blames the crazy climate. He said that after a few weeks of stupidly high temperature the rocks were dry and brittle.... then a sudden drop of over 30°C (was 8°C today) and three days of massive rainfall that saturated the rocks led to the landslide.
We wanted to go to Briançon today, but the Col du Galibier is closed after ~20cm of snowfall on Sunday night. We were parked up at ~1750m and the snow line was only a few hundred metres above us. Was a bit nippy last night.
Ended up in the Opinel Museum in Saint Jean de Maurienne instead. Didn't add to my collection as I've just about every size knife going including the No. 2.....
Think we might hang around the Maurienne area for a few more days.
By heck.
There was a really big collapse earlier in the summer too. I'll see if I can find the link.
I did see it somewhere last year, that climate change is causing the permafrost to recede in the alps, and that is what is basically holding a lot of rock to the mountains so there is going to be an increasing number of landslides.
Think this was too low down to be due to permafrost. More the drying out and then sudden saturation of the rock.
Still, glad we went past on the Saturday and not a day later.
Amazed no one was killed.
Weather has been all over the place this trip. We've roasted on high hikes or I've frozen on wet rides... Next few days should be more activity friendly.
On a less selfish note, the visible retreat of the glaciers is sobering...
I seem to remember hearing that the Jungfrau and Eiger are on borrowed time too?
Lots of mountains in Switzerland are loosening up.
Last week police in Wallis put out a warning about the increased risk of rockfall. The freezing point was over 5000m last week. Mont Blanc's peak is 4800m.
Trying to find an article I read the other week about a guy who's job it is to watch a crumbly mountain for signs that it's going to fall. Uses all manner of devices including lasers and mirrors to measure the mountain. When, not if, it goes it'll be catastrophic for those below.
Edit.... Found it, although it's in German...
Kandersteg is the town.
I remember in mid 90's a very large landslide in Bourg St Maurice. It took out a bridge and made it's way all the way to the isere river. These events do happen fairly often in the Alps
I remember in mid 90’s a very large landslide in Bourg St Maurice. It took out a bridge and made it’s way all the way to the isere river. These events do happen fairly often in the Alps
I think there's a bit of a consensus that they're becoming more common.