Great Flood of "September 08"

"Bear Creek" Looking Downstream"Lake View From Deck of The Wolf Den"

"Bronco Drive Overflow"
Moose Park and Emergency Evacuation Boat
Granny's Gully Creek
John's Glacier Creek
"Ruger" Eyeballing Situation

and On Guard For Claim Jumpers

As I sit here, the weather is clearing to the south, the sun has even peeked out from the dense, rain laden clouds. It appears that the worst is behind us, although those living in the LA area can expect a few more hours of rain. If you received the same amount of rain that we did, then you will know what I am speaking of. It started raining last evening and since then we have had monsoon rain for the past twenty four hours. Needless to say, no work was done on the new project today. However, the good news is that the erosion cofferdam was successful. Due to saturation from the rain, that was some erosion but it was kept to to the confines of the cofferdam with no new deposits at the bottom of the pit. Eventually the cofferdam will be filled with erosion or back fill material and become stabilized.

The other news, we flooded out big time. Not as bad as the "spring run off" floods but it was the highest water level we have ever had during the summer rainy season, which has been quite long this year. As I speak, the pump has started and pumping at full velocity. The good news, each of the run off areas that we identified are clearly visable with the run off. "Bear Creek" is running a full head of water. John's Glacier Creek broke over the rim this evening and it is also running a full head of water. Granny's Gully is also running full volume.

The "rock and clay" breakwater built along Bear Creek is working exactly as planned and diverting all run off directly into the "collection reservoir". Since I have never had the opportunity to explore "Bear Creek" due to the snowfall, I took advantage of just the rain to contend with and explored it today. The creek bed is very rocky with a good number of small tumbling waterfalls. Atop the bluff it forks into three different tributaries and it does drain Moose Meadows as does Johns Glacier Creek and Granny's Gully. It is to bad that we cannot keep this little stream going throughout the summer.

Johns Glacier Creek followed the same exact path that was clearly marked this summer, until someone decided to clean up the area and removed all the survey tape. It is clearly marked by mother nature now so it should not be difficult for the excavator to find. Granny's Gulch is into the bare rocks and gravel, outside the Buffalo Wallow. I temporarily diverted it into Moose Park to keep it out of the parking area. Moose Park is draining well into the drainage canal.

Lesson's learned from this rain. With planned improvements and expansion of the drain system reservoir, our problem should be resolved. A reservoir will be required at the base of Granny's Gully, but it is also a natural place to use a manual drain system with a back up pump in case of an emergency. A soil containment barrier should be installed in the event of erosion at higher elevations of the gully. The cleared cabin areas, will need some top soil or tilled up, leveled and planted in grass to help absorb some of the run off. Each of these lessons can be corrected with a little work and a few dollars.

Sorry that the posting is so short, but I need to go check the pumping process.