Flash Floods - excellent article

I was thinking of this topic yesterday as I hiked down a wash toward the Colorado just below Hoover Dam. Where water had more recently cut into the alluvium, the cross section showed huge boulders encased in the same matrix as the smaller cobbles, gravel, and silt. Of course that's typical of such deposits, but what really struck me was that they had to come from at least five miles away over an extremely broad, shallow slope. The flow that brought them there must have briefly rivaled the Colorado itself.

Even older news here.

On US-395 just before (and after) Lone Pine, you can gaze upon a long alluvial plain from the eastern Sierra. The mountains are perhaps 5-10 miles away, and it is littered with boulders the size of cars. I was told it is from melt of glaciers and not necessarily an afternoon thunderstorm. I doubt if they are all erratics.

"Something BIG passed this way."

On the same subject, just south of Lone Pine is a road off to "Fossil Falls". It appears to have been carved in one (or a few) large flushes from glacial melt that accumulated behind ice dams.

californiathroughmylens.com/fossil-falls

Just to the south below the falls, is a large columnar basalt formation, the rubble of which might have been cleaned out by other floods.

If you talk about torrents of water might as well mention drought - natural and man made.

Above the falls is the remains of Owen's Lake and a trail of smaller lakes to the south of it. Nice scenery if the right light. Along Owens Lake are visual results of tapping the water for Los Angeles. Literally hundreds if not thousands of miles of concentric lake beach lines show the gradual draining of the lake. Hard to believe the lake was large enough to financially support a steam boat for transportation from one side to the other.  The thought of  long, hot miles trudging in sand or the chance to catch a ride and enjoy the view from a seat on a steamer would fill most coffers.

www.legendsofamerica.com/ca-treasures8.html

Now Southern California has used up not only this lake but others and rivers as well and it is still a drought.  It is surprising how fast a 100 years go by if you don't keep track or plan on the future.  Speaking of torrents,  ask BlueBear how much time Manhattan Island, NY, has to plan on replacing much of their subway system -- time flies.  Tick, tick, tick.