Stay away from the cliffs (MD/VA)....

[hokiehunter]

Just a heads up to anyone hunting the Potomac (especially) or Calvert cliffs.  Stay away!!!! Do not even think about coming for at least a week and better off at 2 weeks or so if you value your life at all.  Folks that know me know the area where I usually hunt and in the last 3 days here we've had 16+ inches of rain.  It's been biblical.  Out of curiosity (and after promising my wife I wouldn't go hunting) I peaked at the cliffs this am between storms and they are torn up as bad as I've ever seen.  Hundreds of trees down with 1000+ ton land slides all over.  In the 15 minutes I was there watching from a safe location I saw one giant slide and heard another. 

 

It is terrible and won't be stable enough to be safe to hunt for some time to come.  Beyond that the mud will take a while to wash out.  Seriously.... If you value your life stay away and don't be tempted.  At my most obsessed I wouldn't have even tried it and that says a lot.  Literally anyone that tried to go out today probably would have had a better than average chance of dying and a tooth isn't worth your life.   I can't stress enough how bad it looks and it will take a few weeks of dry weather and some good wind to know down the loose stuff and for things to sort out anyways.

 

Just my 2 cents but I've been doing this a while and know with so much material is down it will take months to sort out so a great summer is ahead.  Don't rush it and you'll be around to enjoy it.  Literally a year or two worth of erosion in 3 days.

 

After thought.... I did hunt the small beach in front of our house some this am while playing with the kids.  It almost never produces anything nice (99% small tigers, hemis, bulls, etc) as we are down stream from the formations but this am was different with the river pumping.  3 cows, 3 good makos (biggest almost 2 inches), and 3 nice hemis (biggest two right at 1.5 inches).  Not a bad am for a beach where I might find 2 cows on all summer. 

 

Good luck to all.  It's going to be a great summer if you stay patient and hunt safe/smart.

[RJB]

Been there done that.  Rain can certainly make things happen, but ive seen cliff falls in the summer tiime too. almost killed a freind of mine in the dry summer months.  30 feet  over and she would have been dead.  Me too, in the winter time, twice.  But at the same time, we all could meet our end in a traffic accident, or any other odd freak acciddnent.  Just glad that im still doing it to this day. Good luck eveyone. 

 

RB

[Miocene_Mason]

Thanks for posting, wasn’t thinking about the past whether and would’ve gone tomorrow. Probably would have seen the amount down and reconsidered but still saved me three hour round trip and disappointment. Guess it’s a trip west for hunting tomorrow.

Nice cows btw

[Tidgy's Dad]

Sound advice.

And some good finds. 

Stay safe, folks and have a great summer collecting! 

[hokiehunter]

I hear you RJB.  Every cliff hunter I know (including myself) has had a "close call" whether its a dirt ball to the noggin or a slide 50 feet in front or behind you and usually in dry calm conditions but this is different.  On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being most deadly you are going to die if you go they are probably a 9.5 right now.  Between the muck/trees and mud slides I am certain you would have a better than average chance of dying if you went in the next few days.  It's that bad and like I said... in my younger days I hunted some wicked blowouts and storms and this is on another level.  

[Bone guy]

I guess this is just a friendly reminder, always keep one eye looking up just in case! 

[hokiehunter]

36 minutes ago, Bone guy said:

I guess this is just a friendly reminder, always keep one eye looking up just in case! 

Def. a friendly reminder but I guess my intent was more an alert to folks like whodaman that travel 2 or 3 hours to get to a particular location.  I used to be one of those guys and who hunt storms but in this case the rain we had was pretty localized in terms of severity.  Go 75 or so miles north or south and you might have only seen a few inches.  The bands just set up perfect over some of the main fossil collecting areas of VA/MD and if you weren't here locally you might think it was just a normal storm.  It wasn't and hence my warning.  

[Adam86cucv]

Thanks for the heads up.  I was thinking about next weekend driving down (about 3 hours away as well) but like you said better safe than sorry especially bringing the kids along. We didn't get to do a prememorial day trip to Brownies beach this year, so we'll just save it for post labor day. 

[MeargleSchmeargl]

3 3

3

 

 

Magic number?

[racerzeke]

Thanks for the advice and nice teeth!

 

Hopefully it will be a productive (albeit safe) summer!

[Miocene_Mason]

Jut to warn some of the cliff hunters:

@HoppeHunting

@Moose324

@eannis6

 

[tatehntr]

Beauty Makos!

[HoppeHunting]

Good info, I wish I had seen this earlier! I went to Brownie's Beach today, and it was dreadful. Trip report incoming...

[FossilDAWG]

Keeping an eye looking up will not help if you are within range of a cliff fall.  You won't be able to run fast or far enough to get out from under it.

 

Don

[MarcoSr]

Agree with the warnings to stay away from beaches with cliffs that just received over a week of heavy rain.  I have been extremely lucky and haven't had a close call with a cliff slide in 44+ years of beach collecting although I have been hit with small pebbles, a box turtle and once almost by a falling dog (amazingly the bull terrier survived at least a hundred foot fall unhurt) and have seen and heard slides at a distance.  However my elder son. Marco Jr., was almost killed by a hundred foot at least cliff slide at Chesapeake Beach years back when he was collecting by himself.  Based on what he told me, he had almost zero warning and started running away from where he heard a cracking sound above him in the cliffs.  Within a couple of seconds he was being moved out into the water by a massive slide.  What saved his life was the fact that a chunk of clay the size of a car actually flipped him up on top of it and he rode on top of it into the water.  His back pack and one deck shoe got ripped off of him (luckily his back pack didn't cause him to get pulled under the debris).  He wound up at least 50 feet into the water.  He was so shaken that he could barely walk or talk for many minutes afterword.  My younger son (Mel) and I went back to Chesapeake Beach the next day to see if we could find his back pack.  We couldn't believe the size of the slide and were amazed that Marco Jr. survived.   If he had been buried by the slide even heavy construction equipment wouldn't have been able to find his body for days.  Marco Jr. continued to fossil hunt but stayed away from Chesapeake Beach for years.  When we (Marco Jr., Mel and I) would take our boat to collect the cliffs along the Chesapeake Bay he would stay in the boat and take the boat a good distance away from the cliffs and wait to pick us up when we were in the Chesapeake Beach area.

 

Marco Sr.

[Kimi64]

Marco, that is an amazing story. So glad your son lived to tell the tale.

 

I knew better than to go to Brownies over the weekend, because of how epic the rains were here last week. I almost posted a warning myself , but thought that I was being my usual over worrying self.

 

I wonder how many people will go to Brownies or CC this Memorial Day weekend oblivious to the danger? 

[MarcoSr]

13 minutes ago, Kimi64 said:

Marco, that is an amazing story. So glad your son lived to tell the tale.

 

I knew better than to go to Brownies over the weekend, because of how epic the rains were here last week. I almost posted a warning myself , but thought that I was being my usual over worrying self.

 

I wonder how many people will go to Brownies or CC this Memorial Day weekend oblivious to the danger? 

 

It obviously wasn't his time to go.  I couldn't believe that he survived that slide when I saw it.

 

The bad thing about heavy rain is that it could take a while before the cliffs fully stabilize.  The water takes a while to work its way into the ground and throughout all the cracks in the formation.  What you also have to watch out for is falling trees especially on windy days near term.  The ground is very soft and sometimes it doesn't take a lot of wind to uproot trees on top of the cliffs by the cliff face.

 

There was a massive slide at Westmoreland State Park at least 10 years ago after very heavy rains. The state of Virginia sent soil and safety engineers to look at the slide area.  They basically found that the entire cliff area was unstable and would be so for many years.  As a result, the park rangers posted no trespassing signs in the cliff areas and to this day prohibit collecting in the cliff areas without a permit. 

 

Marco Sr.

[Peace river rat]

10 hours ago, MarcoSr said:

Agree with the warnings to stay away from beaches with cliffs that just received over a week of heavy rain.  I have been extremely lucky and haven't had a close call with a cliff slide in 44+ years of beach collecting although I have been hit with small pebbles, a box turtle and once almost by a falling dog (amazingly the bull terrier survived at least a hundred foot fall unhurt) and have seen and heard slides at a distance.  However my elder son. Marco Jr., was almost killed by a hundred foot at least cliff slide at Chesapeake Beach years back when he was collecting by himself.  Based on what he told me, he had almost zero warning and started running away from where he heard a cracking sound above him in the cliffs.  Within a couple of seconds he was being moved out into the water by a massive slide.  What saved his life was the fact that a chunk of clay the size of a car actually flipped him up on top of it and he rode on top of it into the water.  His back pack and one deck shoe got ripped off of him (luckily his back pack didn't cause him to get pulled under the debris).  He wound up at least 50 feet into the water.  He was so shaken that he could barely walk or talk for many minutes afterword.  My younger son (Mel) and I went back to Chesapeake Beach the next day to see if we could find his back pack.  We couldn't believe the size of the slide and were amazed that Marco Jr. survived.   If he had been buried by the slide even heavy construction equipment wouldn't have been able to find his body for days.  Marco Jr. continued to fossil hunt but stayed away from Chesapeake Beach for years.  When we (Marco Jr., Mel and I) would take our boat to collect the cliffs along the Chesapeake Bay he would stay in the boat and take the boat a good distance away from the cliffs and wait to pick us up when we were in the Chesapeake Beach area.

 

Marco Sr.

Jeez, I thought the gators in the peace river were a hazard...yikes! Glad he came thru that.

[hokiehunter]

Crazy Story Marco.  I had heard it before from Mel but not in that detail and also have heard his stories of a few knocks on his noggin as well from cliff falls. 

 

I know you hunt the same areas I do on occasion and I can tell you that you will be shocked the next time you go.  It's going to be a while before you can stroll down the beach without climbing over something every 20 feet.  Literally a huge tree down every 20 yds or so blocking your way and in between that thick "suck you to the center of the earth" type muck in down current spots along the slides.  I'm guessing it's at least a month or more and a few good thunderstorms/tides before you get back down to sand and gravel on the majority of the beach.

[MarcoSr]

6 minutes ago, hokiehunter said:

Crazy Story Marco.  I had heard it before from Mel but not in that detail and also have heard his stories of a few knocks on his noggin as well from cliff falls. 

 

I know you hunt the same areas I do on occasion and I can tell you that you will be shocked the next time you go.  It's going to be a while before you can stroll down the beach without climbing over something every 20 feet.  Literally a huge tree down every 20 yds or so blocking your way and in between that thick "suck you to the center of the earth" type muck in down current spots along the slides.  I'm guessing it's at least a month or more and a few good thunderstorms/tides before you get back down to sand and gravel on the majority of the beach.

 

I was with Mel at Stratford Hall one time and we were looking for specimens in the cliffs for Stratford Hall and the Calvert Marine Museum.  As Mel was walking down the beach a very small slide happened right above him.  It rained down chunks of formation.  Mel got hit in the head by a chunk about the size of a baseball.  He was a bit dazed and his head hurt.  Luckily all he ended up with was a good sized lump on his head and formation on his baseball cap.  To his left and right were two much bigger chunks of formation on the beach.  He wouldn't have done too well if he had been hit by either of those.

 

People may not realize how hard it can be to extricate yourself if you sink into that soft mud/muck from a cliff slide.  I was at Westmoreland State Park with my sons several weeks after that big slide there that I mentioned in a reply post above.  We were heading back and my sons were ahead of me and had already gotten around/through the big slide.  I didn't want to climb through fallen trees so I tried to get around the slide near the water.  I was in knee deep water when I noticed that my plastic bottle that had my fossils in it had fallen out of my wader pocket and was floating in the water.  Without even thinking I headed into deeper water to get it and immediately began sinking in the mud.  The more I tried to get out the deeper I sank.  I sank down past my knees in the mud and my chest was at water level and water was getting into my waders.  I couldn't move either leg at all.  My sons couldn't see me because they were already well past the slide.  After minutes of struggling to free my legs, I decided I better try to get out of my waders if I wanted to get out of that mud.  Just as I started to take off my wader shoulder strap someone called to me and asked if I needed help.  Two kayakers had just come around the slide and saw me in the water.  I was able to hold the very back end of one of the kayaks and with the kayaker paddling really hard the suction on my legs released and I was able to pull my legs out and get back to firmer bottom.  I got back to the car probably about twenty minutes after my sons.  They had no idea what had happened until I told them.

 

Marco Sr.

[tatehntr]

@MarcoSr Wow. That is an absolutely incredible, chilling story, especially considering that I have hunted these cliffs many times without realizing how dangerous it really is. Thank you for reminding us that we should be hyper aware when hunting in environments such as this. 

[MeargleSchmeargl]

Sounds like Halloween campfire stories are going around... 

[MarcoSr]

4 hours ago, MeargleSchmeargl said:

Sounds like Halloween campfire stories are going around... 

 

Not campfire stories.  True stories.  When you fossil collect as much as my sons and I have over the years, a lot of crazy stuff happens.  Most of my own personal, real scary fossil hunting stories are about crazy people, wild animals and snakes although I almost drowned once when I got caught on the beach in a really bad squall and got hypothermia midwinter when the water suddenly rose on a beach when it was 20 F and thirty mile per hour winds.  I'm not trying to scare anyone.  I'm still around after almost 45 years of collecting and still collect regularly but I do respect and appreciate mother nature and all of her creatures.

 

Marco Sr.

[Miocene_Mason]

7 minutes ago, MarcoSr said:

do respect and appreciate mother nature and all of her creatures.

As everyone should, especially at the cliffs. No one should go there without knowing that there are many risks that go into finding that next fossil. Luckily I’ve never seen a slide, and the closest calls I’ve had are sudden storms and forgetting to check the tide (my own stupidity). The most important thing to stress is to rather be safe than sorry, if you feel 50/50 about the safety of a going out to the cliffs, just don’t. 

 

Bright side to these cliff falls, more/better fossils and the obstacles will discourage people who don’t want to put in the climbing effort. Hope the summer holds my first full meg

[MeargleSchmeargl]

1 hour ago, MarcoSr said:

 

Not campfire stories.  True stories.  When you fossil collect as much as my sons and I have over the years, a lot of crazy stuff happens.  Most of my own personal, real scary fossil hunting stories are about crazy people, wild animals and snakes although I almost drowned once when I got caught on the beach in a really bad squall and got hypothermia midwinter when the water suddenly rose on a beach when it was 20 F and thirty mile per hour winds.  I'm not trying to scare anyone.  I'm still around after almost 45 years of collecting and still collect regularly but I do respect and appreciate mother nature and all of her creatures.

 

Marco Sr.

But isn't it a story you could tell at a campfire...?