Location: Porteau Cove elevn: 34m. Lat. 49.55883 Long. -123.235

Direct Google URL: This link takes you to a prepared viewpoint.

Hazard type: ls

Short Description: Rock fall on a particularly vulnerable stretch of the Sea-to-sky highway, and some mitigation strategies.

Long Description: This area of Highway 99 has been the site of major rockfalls that have closed the highway for days at a time.The ferry dock here may be useful as an emergency transportation option. See an additional 360 panorama at https://www.360cities.net/to/image/old-port. Also, Porteau Cove Provincial Park sits on a “terminal morain” (look it up), which extends in huge arc across the entire Howe Sound. See http://sustainablehowesound.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Howe-Sound-Bathymetry-Map.pdf for an excellent map of Howe Sound’s depth or “bathymetry”.

The granit rockslide covering Highway 99 and the railway a few hundred meters north of Porteau Cove.

media1: Short general article about the location, the park, glacial geology and rockslide hazards at Portequ Cove and vicinity.

media2: Report on the road closure and other impacts of this July, 2008, rock slide, by CBC.

In Depth: Short news story from CTV News Vancouver

Some content on this page has been copied, adapted or referenced from Dep’t Geog. UBC’s virtual field trip blog, https://blogs.ubc.ca/fieldtrips/.