August 11, 2007

August 11, 2007

From Ephrata, WA we drove northeast. The route took us along the valley of a steep black canyon called Grand Coulee. We stopped at the Dry Falls Interpretative Center to learn of the geology of the region. Besides being very dry, eastern Washington scabland is gouged with a number of coulees, canyons apparently carved by rivers but now high and dry. Grand Coulee is the largest.

This interpretative center overlooks what used to be a gigantic waterfall but is now also dry. Scientists couldn’t explain their formation until a lone geologist from the University of Chicago hypothesized floods of biblical proportions repeatedly devastated the area during the last Ice Age. He theorized that when the last glaciers advanced southward, one finger dammed the flow of a tributary of the Columbia River forming an immense lake in western Montana. Eventually the ice dams would burst inundating eastern Washington with a wall of water, carving huge canyons, and scattering boulders over the landscape. He was roundly mocked for this theory for forty years until it at last was found to be true. I find this story fascinating. My theory is that scientists will discover something similar hit central Russia with floodwaters rushing into the Black Sea giving rise to the biblical floods of the Middle East.

Grand Coulee continues north past the Dry Falls. At the far northern end a large butte, called Steamboat Rock, sits in the middle of the canyon. We stop at the State Park surrounding it, park the RV and don our hiking boots. We make the hour hike to the plateau atop it and enjoy the vista. This upper section of Grand Coulee is filled with water pumped from the Columbia River forming a reservoir for irrigation and recreation.

After our exercise of the day, we drive a little further north out of Grand Coulee and down into the Columbia River valley and the Grand Coulee Dam crossing it. We stop at the dam visitor center where we learn it is the largest dam in the US producing far more hydroelectric power than any other US facility. Three times Hoover Dam. I am shocked, as the dam doesn’t look very impressive to me at all. We spend the night at a private RV park on a hill overlooking the dam run by a delightful husband and wife team.