RHH's photos with the keyword: slide mountain

Here's another photo of the some of the Orange Peel Fungus we found while hiking Slide Mountain. The Orange Peel Fungus is Aleuria aurantia and these were growing in the area where we parked our car. From the information I've seen they prefer disturbed soil.

The morning we went fossil hunting it looked to be a good day, but the clouds came in and the sunshine disappeared though we were spared any rain, a real blessing on the clayey slopes of Slide Mountain. This view looks north over the valley to the mountains of the Canadian Coastal Range.

This is a rather poor photo of the landslide area above Racehorse Creek. It shows where the whole hillside came away, much of it sliding down into the creek and its valley to the left of the picture. Visible at the bottom of the picture is part of the jumble of vegetation, boulders and dirt. The mountain is formed of layers of soft carbonaceous shale and sandstone, which can be seen on the bare cliff left by the slide, and the side of the hill came away at one of the places where these layers met, the flat slope still visible and with little vegetation growing on it. The scale is difficult to comprehend here, but some sense of it can be gotten from the mature trees at the top of the slope. The cliff, from the bottom corner to the top, is around 350 feet. The slide happened on January 5, 2009, after days of warm rain and stormy weather, and two days later there was a flash flood in the creek below when the water of the creek broke through the temporary dam left by the slide.

Taken at Slide Mountain while hunting for Eocene fossils there. Liked the idea of juxtaposing the fossil with a bit of fern growing nearby. The rock also contains parts of other leaves at the top and to the side of the living fern. Not entirely happy with the photo, though. Wanted more contrast between the imprint of the fossil and the surrounding rock but couldn't get it.

Another photo from the area of Slide Mountain and from our fossil-hunting excursion. These are the leaves of Rubus spectabilis, the Salmonberry.

This is another photo from Saturday's visit to Slide Mountain and the fossil hunting trip there. As is always the case we found much more than fossils and these strange fungi were among the finds. This is the Orange Peel Fungus, Aleuria aurantia, very well-named. They were everywhere on the disturbed ground from the slide. This one is for Sue (Kigelia58) and for my wife, who like Sue, can't pass a nice fungus or mushroom without taking pictures.

I am interrupting my photos of the Canadian Rockies to post some pictures from last Saturday's hike with son Edward. We went fossil hunting in the area of Slide Mountain and Racehorse Creek and found plenty of what we were were hunting. This is a fossil of fern leaves along with other leaves in carbonaceous shale. Another fossil of a palm frond is shown below. This rock is only about a foot across, but the rock below is a huge boulder. The whole area is a fossil hunter's paradise, but these were found in the area of a massive landslide that took place in 2009 (more information with the other picture), uncovering thousands of fossils. Slide Mountain is in Whatcom County, Washington in the foothills of the North Cascades and overlooks the Nooksack River and Racehorse Creek and the formations are referred to as Eocene Chuckanut formations, layers of shale and sandstone.

Last Saturday, November 9, son Edward and I hiked around Slide Mountain and the Racehorse Creek landslide, looking for fossils. The hike was more of a muddy scramble than anything else, but we found plenty of fossils and also met up with some of Edward's co-workers and spent most of the afternoon with them doing some more fossil hunting and exploring. The Racehorse Creek landslide happened on January 5, 2009, after a days of warm stormy weather and rain (what we call here a Pineapple Express). About 500,000 cubit feet of rock and earth slid down the mountain and into Racehorse Creek temporarily blocking the Creek and two days later causing a massive flood of water, rock and timber down Racehorse Creek. The landslide left a 350 foot cliff in the side of the mountain and uncovered thousands of Eocene fossils, mostly of plants, though bird tracks have also been found. The debris field itself is a jumble of boulders and timber and the best place to look for fossils, though it requires some serious scrambling, but the fossils can be found all over the mountain and we looked in several other places as well. The area is layers of soft carbonaceous shale which quickly weathers and crumbles and Chuckanut sandstone. The fossils are found in both with inclusions of coal as well. This is a photo of a whole palm frond and pieces of other fronds in shale. The rock is around four feet long and several feet wide, to give an indication of scale, and many of these fossils are massive.