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Lituya Bay: The 524-Metre Wave

A fisherman and his 7-year-old son rode a wave in Lituya Bay that climbed 524 meters up a mountain, and both lived.

Chapter 1

A Quiet Cove

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On a July night in 1958, fisherman Howard Ulrich and his seven-year-old son were asleep aboard their boat in Lituya Bay, a long narrow inlet on the coast of Alaska. They had anchored in a small cove for the night, the way fishermen did, expecting nothing worse than a quiet morning.

At 10:15 PM a massive earthquake woke them. The shaking lasted one to two minutes, and it rocked the boat violently at its anchor. This was not weather.

This is the story of what came next. Within minutes, a wave would run 524 meters up a mountainside, the highest wave run-up ever recorded in modern history. The Ulrichs were in the bay where it happened, aboard a boat 12 meters long. How did they live?

Part of

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a megatsunami?

A megatsunami is a giant wave driven by a landslide rather than by a shifting seafloor. Geologist Don Miller used the 1958 Lituya Bay event to show that landslides starting above the water could make waves far larger than earthquake-driven tsunamis. The term was coined afterward for this class of wave.

Was the wave at Lituya Bay really 524 meters tall?

The 524 meters is run-up, meaning how high the water climbed a mountain spur opposite the landslide. Out on the water, at the position of the fishing boat Edrie, the wave stood 15 to 23 meters high. Miller confirmed the run-up by measuring where the forest had been sheared away.

How did Howard Ulrich and his son survive the wave?

Howard Ulrich forced the Edrie to ride the crest of the wave after the anchor chain snapped. The wave carried the boat over land above the treetops, and the backwash set it down in the middle of the bay. He kept the engine running and steered through smaller waves full of ice and debris.

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