Ruminations

Our Nature-Loving Nature

"The way it was described to us was there was a large cliff rock face above the falls and ... it looks like that cliff face came loose and slid through the falls area.
"From what I'm told, the rocks slid into the falls area and slid into that viewing area where the falls are.
"Since July, we've had a lot of rain and snow here, too. There's been a lot of moisture in the ground and it's probably made the ground unstable."
Chaffee County, Colorado Undersheriff John Speeze

Russ Ramaker / Flickr Chalk Creek Canyon

Dwayne Johnson and his family were out enjoying nature, hiking at the Agnes Vaille Falls, a trail used by many people, popular with tourists and well known as one of nature's many local prime beauty spots. It is described by a local magazine as "family friendly". The trail is readily accessible, and mounting it has a deep reward; a view of the falls and the Chalk Creek Valley in Collegiate Peaks. It is an area that boasts mountains well over 4,200 metres in height.

This past Monday Mr. Johnson, a well known and popular local who with his wife Dawna, was recognized for volunteering in coaching sport teams in their community in Buena Vista, Colorado, embarked on a day of fun with their two girls and two cousins. "Everyone knows this family. Everyone who was involved in football knew Dwayne. The whole family, they were gregarious. Very outgoing, very active in the community", said Brian Dengler, pastor at Cornerstone Church.

They were all of them buried in a massive slide of boulders at the falls. There was the parents, Dwayne and Dawna, their 18-year-old daughter Kiowa, and 13-year-old Gracie and with them were a ten-year-old and a 22-year-old, cousins, visiting. They were all buried as 100-ton rocks slid onto the viewing area where the family stood in the Chalk Creek Canyon. There were others in the area who witnessed the event. They described car-sized boulders tumbling down.

Looking down on the rocks at Agnes Vaille Falls. The falls are in a crevice to the left. Scripps Media Inc.

The rock slide was so massive that it was said to be several football fields in length. Deputy Nick Tolsma, one of the first-responding would-be rescuers, noticed a hand sticking out from under rocks, and then proceeded to assist in releasing the 13-year-old, Gracie Johnson, from her stone prison. "She told me at the last second when the boulders were coming down on top of them that he covered her up and protected her which I believe it saved her life", he said.

The desperate, last-minute gesture of a father doing what he could in the face of impossible odds, to prolong the life of at least one of his children. It is a legacy of love that will live in his daughter's heart. For as it turned out, he was successful in helping her to survive the dreadful ordeal. She had a broken leg and was immediately transferred to hospital. It was soon determined that special equipment would be required to move an immense boulder that held down one body. Four, it was speculated, could be moved using hand tools.

But in view of the unstable conditions and the fear that such efforts might dislodge a new rockfall, the recovery operation had to be put on temporary hold. "If anything moves, our people will come out", said David Nottensmeyer of the North End Search and Rescue team. We love nature and fear her at one and the same time, although not always aware of when and why. Tellingly enough, the area was named after a Denver mountaineer who died in 1925, during a winter climb of Longs Peak, rising to 4,300 metres.