This has been quite the spring so far. We've had an enormous amount of rainfall. This, on top of the fairly large snowpack that had accumulated over the winter months, evidence of which can still be seen lingering on the trails in Bilberry Creek Ravine forest, and beyond, on the slopes of the forest floor.

Needless to say all that meltwater and rain has to go somewhere, and go it does, into the creek nestled deep in the ravine, running high and wide. When we went out yesterday for our ravine walk the creek was high but it was also extremely muddy. This, attributable to the fact that a ravine-walking acquaintance who lives at the foot of our street and whose house backs on the ravine informed us that there had been a massive slump over the weekend.

That means the high portions of the forest overlooking the ravine had suffered a bit of a slide. Hardly surprising, since the forest floor and deep within is comprised entirely of Leda clay and sand. When Leda clay becomes completely inundated, it tends to be slippery and entirely loses its compactness; it dissolves, in other words and collapses.

There was so much rain over Easter weekend, compounded by countless heavy rain events previously and more that came down and continues to come down, since. We had a break yesterday; although the sky was impenetrably dark with clouds and it was a windy, cold day, the rain held off. By midnight last night it came down, heavily, rained all night and on throughout the entire morning.

A much-appreciated halt to the rain arrived in early afternoon and that's when we seized the opportunity to get out for a walk with our two little dogs.   They even got the chance to meet up with a few of their ravine friends and have a bit of a romp together.
       

And then we came along to the end-point in our usual ravine circuit, to see evidence of another hillside slump. Up on the hill, close to the street on which we live, there is a trail that runs behind the  houses that back onto the ravine. It is from that trail downward where the slides appear to have been happening. This was a smaller slide than the one that had been described to us which was about a hundred feet wide. But we could see from this smaller, latest one that the creek had been filled with the collapsed clay, and the trees the fall had taken out, forcing the water flow to find its way through the roots of a fallen tree that partially blocked its passage.