A few weeks ago, I mentioned that we got a ton of snow all at once. We have beautiful, massive mountains in our neck of the woods - the Sierra Nevadas! Truly beautiful when you see them snow-capped. See those peaks in the distance!?
It's "thirst-quenching" when all that snow melts and runs down the mountain, flooding the rivers and creeks, satiating all our parched land! Everything turns bright green for a bit! Hard to believe how quickly it can turn back into golden browns and yellows!
However, once in a a while, it's just too much simultaneously. The snowmelt gushes and overflows the banks and doesn't just flood the rivers but floods all the roads and land nearby! In January this year, it was probably the worst anyone had ever seen in 25 years or more! My daughter was out driving with her fiance in the rain, and at the LAST second, they saw something startling : the ROAD was missing! Just - gone! They couldn't believe their eyes, but thankfully they did see it in time!
My son and I have really been missing one another! With him volunteering his time for a friend after work, and with me being out of the country for a bit - we just hadn't seen each other in a while! So he suggested we go for a walk! And I couldn't have been happier!!! We had only seen the road from the pictures the night that my daughter drove - so we went on an adventure to see it with our own eyes.
As you can see here, the creek passes directly underneath the road well, what WAS the road.
@pinmapple From a distance, it really just looks like a small separation in the road. Maybe easily fixed? It's very difficult to judge how much devastation is there! Of course, we continued closer!
A bit closer, and what do you think? It's starting to look more serious now. I'm not sure what is so magnetic about scenes like this, but they really do draw you in, don't they? I am so in awe of the power of nature! To think that rushing water took out this road - wow! Let's get closer and really get a better view!
Ok, maybe your eyes went immediately to the road being washed away, but mine went right to my boy! hehe I guess that shows that I really have been missing him!!! But - let's take a look back at the MISSING ROAD! LOL
When I look at this picture, it STILL doesn't convey the magnitude of the destruction. Even with Mikey standing there for perspective, the camera is not picking up what we are actually seeing. I tried to get an even BETTER shot!
I think being able to see the creek below now helps your eyes to see just how powerful that water had to be to take out this entire road! And when you look at how small the road on the other side appears compared to the side we are standing on - you can judge the distance better on the photo! It's really very remarkable!!
And for the final shot, we got right up to the edge. You can see the crack in the road there! From our perspective at first, it seemed like that edge might just break off and fall. As we creeped closer to the edge we could see that the road was laying on top of solid ground beneath. No overhang! So I was safely able to take this next shot.
From here, you can see where the creek comes from before the place where it took out the road. The water has receded significantly but there is still a constant flow. Even though we now have only ONE way off the mountain, instead of two, I think seeing this is actually very beautiful.
Thankfully no one was hurt and no private property was damaged! It's going to take a while before the county even tries to fix this, I think!!! So it will be a bit of a nuisance to not have this road! I loved taking this way for a scenic route. I always bring visitors to the top of this mountain for walks! It only took 3 minutes to get there. The round-about way to get there now would take almost 20!
Even with all that, I love seeing the handiwork of nature in all its glory!
But, hopefully the county will fix this road soon too! hahahahaha
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