A Look at the Big French Slide on Hwy 299


This video of the Big French slide on Hwy 299 was taken about a week ago by Ryan Robertson. He explained, “This aerial video shows the completed work Caltrans has done to stabilize the mountain and mitigate further sliding.”

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Hobo-joe
Guest
Hobo-joe
6 years ago

“Mother nature bats last”

groba dude osnt trustafarian
Guest
groba dude osnt trustafarian
6 years ago

ANYONE who thinks slides are a thing of the past, is wrong…

The highways of Trinity, Humboldt and Mendo, they are all in critical need of re-engineering, rebuilding, and a new way of thinking! The massive rebuild of 299 between Redding and Weaverville is a good indicator of the kind of thinking and investment that Califonia needs to place in the North State.

Just drive over to Arizona, Nebraska, even Nevada: California highways look UNPAVED by comparison! AND, Californians, they are all speeding, all the time, on their crappy highways!

Our state has the poorest quality roads, the highest taxes, the most vehicles, the most miles driven, the WORST drivers ANYWHERE, and the least enforcement of any state adjacent or west of Illinois.

Good luck making it from Redding to Arcata this winter!

And all you Millenials who think you are SO important that you shouldn’t have to drive politely,
please, put down your phone and try driving safely for a change…

Brian
Guest
Brian
6 years ago

The 299 buckhorn engineering project was big. Too big.

5 years of 2 hour delays in 100 degree temps. Nope. Give me the old 299 and all my time.

Sure, I can make it to redding in 20 less minutes, but that hasn’t sold me.

Rural highways to rural communities should be left alone. Bigger, easier highways bring in more people who don’t know how to live or drive out here. Thus, more accidents and screams for “better roads.”

Bigger highways have large tax bills attached along with larger maintenance costs. But we are still rural, so financially we are hit harder.

I loved living in Trinity Co, where there was 1 elevator, no stop lights and no parking meters. Stop light is coming. Damn.

No new taxes! No new highways! Leave some rural areas alone for future land-loving generations to enjoy.

Veteran's Friend
Guest
Veteran's Friend
6 years ago
Reply to  Brian

I agree wholeheartedly. Destroying communities for 15 minutes faster trip to Redding is insanity not progress

Brian
Guest
Brian
6 years ago

Friends, what most call “progress” I call “insanity”.

Ullr Rover
Guest
Ullr Rover
6 years ago
Reply to  Brian

👍👍👍
I miss the old stretch of Buckhorn. It was one of the few stretches of highway where you could drive as fast as your car could handle the road and still not be speeding.

It may shave off a few minutes of commute time, but the hours over years of waiting for buckhorn to finish will never be recovered.

Also, now that the length limit has been lifted on 299, there have been quite a few big rig drivers who don’t have a clue and should not be on 299. 35 mph with a line of 15 cars is not exceptible… only RV’s are allowed to do that in summer.

Mariahgirl
Guest
Mariahgirl
6 years ago
Reply to  Brian

You are so right on! The more they screw with our roads the worse they are and now the idiots that want Richardson’s grove left alone think all of those big trucks should travel 299.

picchu
Guest
6 years ago

Thanks Caltrans for all your hard work and design efforts to prevent further slides at Big French Creek.

Of course there will be more slides on 299. The effort at Big French Creek stabilized the slide that perpetually blocked 299, sometimes for months.

We live in a very geologically unstable part of the planet. Slides and slip outs are to be expected on highways originally built in the 1920s. I appreciate the efforts of the CHP and Caltrans and local road departments who keep us as safe as possible when the weather turns wet. They have my heart felt thanks.

The notion that we can reengineer these highways simply ignores the bank breaking costs of such total redesign. We have to maintain what we have because for the foreseeable future, that is all we have.

Taurus Ballzhoff
Guest
Taurus Ballzhoff
6 years ago
Reply to  picchu

Humboldt County, characterized by provincial, even backwoods throwbacks, folks who love the past: get ready for tomorrow!

Stick your heads in the sand all you want, the future is here!

The state will choke on 100 year old engineering, and nobody is going to bring loads of Taco Bell supplies, Toyota parts, or cheap plastic stuff for corporations to sell at WalMart or Target, over the roads that get closed every winter.

Last year was a nightmare for the folks who work and need to travel within, and to and from Humboldt.

It’s not about the past any more! The rest of the world can’t afford your parochial attitudes and your refusal to go forward.

Modern life is here, get over it!

Brian
Guest
Brian
6 years ago

If “it’s not about the past”, will history please stop repeating itself!

A landslide can happen on new or old routes.

You never were, and never will be, locked out of supplies from a winter.

◇-♣◆
Guest
◇-♣◆
6 years ago

If you cant handle being stuck in Humboldt then please dont live here. Not to be mean at all. Its an incredibly unrealistic notion that any roadwork is going to stop slides!

The highway was closed for over a week when confusion hill went out and there was hardly anyone freaking out the way people did last year.
You can talk about moving into the “future” all you want but nature is the past present and future.
There are lots of folks here who would be glad to be cut off to the south, if you cant get it together to be self sufficient then please move on, the rest of us know how to run a chainsaw, grow and store food and have alternate transpo like quads or horses. A fourth grade class in fortuna waa able to make a viable jet fuel out of algae, for real, so we could still fly and there are people here making biofuel as well as ethanol for cars to run on.
That’s what makes me feel safe here and if we all dont feel like having our county turn into a cityfolk busybee rush around scene, well that might seem outdated to you. The funny thing is as the economy gets worse (a recession and possible depression is just around the corner folks) more and more people want the lifestyle we have here, how many people grow their own food and keep chickens in society compared to ten years ago.
And if you think the state is going to prioritize funds for our area anyway, well id advise you to check that your head is not in said sand.

Taurus Ballzhoff
Guest
Taurus Ballzhoff
6 years ago
Reply to  ◇-♣◆

You must be from Garberville.

Thanks, I will leave when I choose…

Last year I had to drive on Bell Springs Cow Path to escape… THAT is not gonna happen again.

[edit]

Clive
Guest
Clive
6 years ago

I’ve lived in HumCo for 15 years—I stayed after graduating from HSU, because I loved the rural, relatively quiet lifestyle and the fact that people were friendly and not in a big-city rush. Nowadays, HumCo feels more like cities to the south—people are aggressive on the highways, tailgating and cutting me off even when I’m driving the speed limit and in the right lane. I feel like I’m taking my life in my own hands, because of distracted, DUI, reckless drivers on the roads and the complete lack of enforcement. I’ve also noticed the incredible increase in traffic in the past few years—especially big trucks now that the 299 is open to STAA trucks. And I’ve noticed that there are more big rig accidents. I guess some want to see our area grow and change—to become more like Santa Rosa—but, for me, HumCo is on the Road to Ruination. I also hate the Green Rush mentality; the arrogance and bravado and the way those people act like they own the world and that the rest of us are in their way; they have no problems with destroying the environment as long as they get rich. So good luck Humboldt in maintaining your rural, scenic charm—the beauty that draws people from all over the world. What I foresee is lots of development—most of it crappy, because that’s what America does best. I can hardly wait for an RV park on the Bay, a huge interchange up at Trinidad for the Trinidad Rancheria, including the likely big digital sign they will put in to compete with Bear River’s hideous huge digita sign, for the offshore wind turbines that will surely kill marine life and ruin the aesthetics of our now uncluttered seascape, for Richardson Grove to be opened to more STAA trucks (and killing the old-growth redwoods in the process); for Mercer Fraser to install a cannabis facility on the Mad River and ruin our water quality, for cannabis bizzes to surround every part of our community, becoming even more drug-infested than it is now. What some call progress, I can a tragedy, because watch out—in the next few years—you will just see more of the same and the things that drew people here will be gone. And, yes, you don’t have to tell me to “get out”—I’m already planning on leaving. It’s not the same place I used to love!

Shel
Guest
Shel
6 years ago
Reply to  Clive

I hear you! Best of wishes! Every time I think I have found some place good, the locals there confirm its more of the same shite we have here…

Bev
Guest
Bev
6 years ago

I agree. Humboldt is not the same or even close to what it once was. We have to anticipate change and progress but when that change is making the area worse, we have a right to complain. So sad to see a once family oriented place disintegrate into what we have now.

Taurus Ballzhoff
Guest
Taurus Ballzhoff
6 years ago
Reply to  Bev

You can be the mess, or change the mess. Which will it be?

Can’t change the past, but you can build the future.