June 12, 2010: When 2 Inches of Rain Becomes more than 6 feet of Water

Stebbin’s Gulch is, in spite of its’ funny name, one of my favorite places. It is northeast Ohio’s slot canyon. Almost untouched by humans for over 100 years it is also as pristine a place as one can find. Here the water has cut through the 4 major formations of rock. As you move up stream you pass from Chagrin Shale, to Cleveland Shale, to Bedford Shale, to Berea Sandstone. The Berea Sandstone, is the most spectacular with vertical walls more than 100 feet high in places. But what makes Stebbin’s a gulch, is the narrow width. At times it is less than 30 feet from wall to wall.

I have been visiting Stebbin’s most of my life. I think the first time was when I was about 11. In my teens I volunteered to carry the first aid kit on the monthly guided hikes. After that my visits were infrequent until I started doing bird surveys for the Holden Arboretum, which owns the property.

This institutional ownership of Stebbin’s and the fact that access is restricted has kept it in pristine condition. If you want proof go to some of the similar features (although none is an actual gulch) in the Lake and Cleveland Metroparks.

For the past 6 years I have been privileged to have unrestricted access to all of Holden’s thousands of acres of natural areas, including Stebbin’s Gulch. I am currently conducting a stream water quality monitoring project which uses Louisiana Waterthrush as the indicator species. About every 3 weeks we make a run up Stebbin’s and mark the location of every Louisiana Waterthrush we find using GPS.

My last trip up the gulch was May 22. We had had a lot of rain in the previous week, and it was evident some logs had been pushed around by the water. There was some erosion on the banks too, where the water had come out of the rocky stream bed. But none of this is unusual. Stebbin's changes a little every time you visit. It is a dynamic place,where you can actually see geologic forces in action.

On June 12 we visited Stebbin’s again. The previous Sunday, thunderstorms had dumped more than 2 inches of rain in 6 hours on Holden. Not a huge amount by any standard, but in Stebbin’s Gulch this created a cataclysm.

From moment we entered the gulch is was evident things had changed dramatically. The fallen trees we had been going under or climbing over for years were gone. No where to be found. The gulch had been scoured by the torrent of rushing water and rock. These log jams were not trivial either. Sometimes consisting of several trees 3 feet in diameter and accumulated debris. It would have taken high explosives for us to clear these jams, but the water seemed to have just swept them away.

The stream bed itself was drastically changed as well. The course of the water, new shallows, and pools where there were once shallows. A place where the stream now runs under the rock for about 10 meters. Rocks which had been covered with Liverwort, and moss scoured clean. Tumbles of rocks along the banks and massive slides. Vegetation washed away.

In places we could see how high the water had been. At least 6 feet. But these are the wide spots with banks along the run. In the places where the gulch narrows and the sides are solid rock there was no evidence of the high water mark. We could only imagine.