Palouse and Snake Rivers, Washington
The still water of the Palouse River was the perfect mirror of the surrounding basalt cliffs as we set off on our morning Zodiac cruises and kayak adventures. We were at the confluence of the Snake River, 20 miles above Lower Monument Dam. The wide river bottom and towering cliffs seemed out of place for such a small river, as indeed we learned they were. The landscape we were viewing belongs to an earlier time. It was the setting of the Bretz Flood, a catastrophic event that that affected the region from Montana to the Pacific Ocean 12,000 years ago.
Evidence of the flood was everywhere we looked. On the bus trip to Palouse Falls, we witnessed the falls and its plunge pool. Although it still has a river flowing in it today, it is a mere ghost of the torrents that carved it 12,000 years ago. At water level in the canyon we needed only to look up and image a wall of water that reached to the top of the cliffs and moved at 65 miles per hour. All this water came from glacial waters held in ancient Lake Missoula. It held half the present volume of Lake Michigan.
Whether anyone was here at the time to witness it the great flood, no one is sure. The nearby Marmes Rockshelter does confirm that the area was inhabited 10,000 years ago, as well as the presence of a different climate, as evidenced by bones from arctic fox and pine marten. The wildlife of today’s climate was fun to look for as we cruised along. We spotted many mule deer, American coots, western grebes, great blue herons, cormorants and many other birds.
The spectacular end to this beautiful day was the lunar eclipse. Soon after sunset when the moon came up, the eclipse was in progress. For over an hour we watched the silvery moon gradually reemerge from the orange orb into which it had been transformed.
The still water of the Palouse River was the perfect mirror of the surrounding basalt cliffs as we set off on our morning Zodiac cruises and kayak adventures. We were at the confluence of the Snake River, 20 miles above Lower Monument Dam. The wide river bottom and towering cliffs seemed out of place for such a small river, as indeed we learned they were. The landscape we were viewing belongs to an earlier time. It was the setting of the Bretz Flood, a catastrophic event that that affected the region from Montana to the Pacific Ocean 12,000 years ago.
Evidence of the flood was everywhere we looked. On the bus trip to Palouse Falls, we witnessed the falls and its plunge pool. Although it still has a river flowing in it today, it is a mere ghost of the torrents that carved it 12,000 years ago. At water level in the canyon we needed only to look up and image a wall of water that reached to the top of the cliffs and moved at 65 miles per hour. All this water came from glacial waters held in ancient Lake Missoula. It held half the present volume of Lake Michigan.
Whether anyone was here at the time to witness it the great flood, no one is sure. The nearby Marmes Rockshelter does confirm that the area was inhabited 10,000 years ago, as well as the presence of a different climate, as evidenced by bones from arctic fox and pine marten. The wildlife of today’s climate was fun to look for as we cruised along. We spotted many mule deer, American coots, western grebes, great blue herons, cormorants and many other birds.
The spectacular end to this beautiful day was the lunar eclipse. Soon after sunset when the moon came up, the eclipse was in progress. For over an hour we watched the silvery moon gradually reemerge from the orange orb into which it had been transformed.
