A single, bedroom-sized boulder that rolled off a mountainside adjacent to the ferry terminal early Friday fortunately traveled between electric poles and guardrails, but still poses a challenge to state officials – how to get rid of it.
“It was like a 7-10 split,” said Gabe Thomas, assistant harbormaster, who discovered the boulder 7 a.m. on his way to the Lutak Dock. “It went between the power poles and it missed the guardrail there by about a foot. It’s amazing it didn’t hit anything.”
State Department of Transportation foreman Matt Boron said two front-end loaders were able to push the boulder about 20 feet away from an entrance to the terminal parking lot, but it may sit there a while until he finds the best way to get rid of it.
Because of the boulder’s proximity to cars and buildings at the ferry terminal, Boron said the state may try chipping away at it with a rock-breaking machine rather than using dynamite to bust it up.
Road contractor Roger Schnabel said a quarter-stick of dynamite would do the trick – “It could be gone in half an hour” – but said Boron’s approach would be “way safer.”
Schnabel said he doesn’t often see boulders so big. It’s more than 10 feet tall and roughly 15 feet square. Two front-end loaders, working together last week, couldn’t pick it up.
“It’s a little bit of a challenge, but Matt’s ingenious enough. He’ll be able to find some way to get rid of it reasonably and safely,” Schnabel said.
Boron said it’s not clear where on the cliff there the boulder rolled from. “It’s kind of shale cliff there but (the boulder) is more of an ancient glacial deposit. It doesn’t even match the terrain there.”
Impact of the boulder left large, six-inch depressions in the road, Boron said. “That’s six inches of asphalt, so it was a pretty good hit. It came down violently. It scattered rocks all over the ferry terminal parking lot when it hit.”
DOT is accustomed to slides along the hillside scattering rocks in the road, and the message police dispatch relayed to Boron Friday didn’t capture the magnitude of the obstruction he faced, he said.
“I made the turn past the tank farm and saw it and said, ‘Holy mother of God,’” Boron said.