The Landslide

Recently, maybe two weeks ago, Nicole and I heard about a “mudslide” that had happened just outside of our town. Some friends were telling us that the road headed into the capital had become temporarily impassable as a result. We had a trip to Yerevan scheduled for the upcoming weekend, so we waited to see how the whole thing played out. In a few days time we learned that the “mudslide” was really a major landslide that literally pickup a huge section of the road and carried it down into the river below. Fortunately, by this time, arrangements had been made for buses to take passengers out to the landslide where they could walk across a path to the other side and get on another bus that would continue the trip into Yerevan. We decided to give it a shot and here’s what we saw…

Here’s the spot where the buses let you off to begin your hike over the landslide. You can see that the road is completely covered by a huge amount of earth. The trees and bushes are all still alive and well. It’s like a huge piece of earth just moved down the mountain and decided to settle in a new spot just as it was before.


This is where the passengers begin their ascent over the landslide. You can see the little path that has formed from foot traffic.

Here are two pictures of the pieces of the road that were just picked up and sent down to the river.


As you walk along the path, you can see really large cracks in the earth that are quite deep. This is a picture of Nicole standing over one. Throughout the walk, all the passengers help each other to get over these cracks and the other more difficult parts of the path. The ledge where the whole thing just broke off from the mountain is behind Nicole to the left.

This last picture was taken from around the mid-point of the path. The other side of the landslide where the buses wait for passengers to continue the trip is off in the distance. Overall, it’s about a 10 minute hike from one side to the other. I suppose it’s a little longer for the older women carrying 20 kilos of potatoes.


Luckily, this was a nice day to take a walk. It was actually a fun experience. I’m sure we won’t be as excited when it’s pouring down rain and covered in mud. We were both pretty impressed with the sheer size of this thing. -Andy