Mudslide! Traditional Cache
Nomex: No response from owner. If you wish to repair/replace the cache sometime in the future, just contact us (by email), and assuming it meets the current guidelines, we'll be happy to unarchive it.
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No, this isn't the recipe for a delicious drink, but you can enjoy one of those after you sign the log at the site of this natural mudslide. [;)]
On Saturday, April 9, 1983 “a mountain of mud and trees avalanched across Highway 50 and the American River” leaving a pile of debris estimated at 100,000 tons and up to 70 feet high above the roadway. The massive slide closed Highway 50 for several weeks, created a temporary dam which backed up the American River to Alder Creek, and tore out about 50 feet of the PG&E flume that runs above the river. (The flume is now operated by the El Dorado Irrigation District, or EID).
Two days after the landslide, the Mountain Democrat described the scene you are standing at. “Flowing mud, rocks and trees cut a swath up to 1,000 feet wide. The wave of earth bounced from the riverbed, then up and over Highway 50 on the north side of the river. A pile of rubble 50 to 70 feet deep and 300 yards wide now sits atop the the highway and river. On the mountain where Friday stood stately red fir, pine and cedar, there is now a huge chasm, and behind that are cliffs and fractures on the mountainside which threaten to give way and send still more earth sliding down. The mountain was still moving as darkness fell Saturday night.”
Several causes of the slide were investigated, including (1) heavy winter rainfall and snow, (2) lack of ground cover as a result of the 1973 Pilliken fire, and (3) the PG&E canal, which had reopened the day before the landslide, after a month’s closure for repairs.
Source: The Mountain Democrat and El Dorado News, April 11-13, 1983
The cache is a cammoed match container and should be available year round. The location was not my first choice. It was meant to be a hanger in a tree further up the highway, which didn't prove feasible.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ghpxrq njnl ng gur raq.