We’ve been traveling in eastern Washington for the past week, after leaving Bellingham on Sunday. We crossed the Northern Cascades on Highway 20 through some pretty spectacular scenery, then down into the little town of Twisp, where we spent a couple of days. Nice bakery!
From there, we drove down to Chelan (sha-LAN), WA, which sits on a gorge lake some 1500 feet deep. Here, in the middle of nowhere, is a resort town replete with wineries, golf, lots of million-dollar homes, scantily clad young women sunning themselves, good restaurants, etc. Who knew? Took the boat ride up to Stehekin, some 2-4 hours away, depending on the boat and saw Rainbow Falls in full thunder. Nice bakery! Again!
Left Chelan and headed down Highway 97 through the Columbia River Gorge, which quickly turns into a spectacular geologic trip through basaltic plateau with scenery that quickly reminds one of the Southwest with its tabletop mesas. Visited a place called Dry Falls, which is a geologic remnant of the Columbia River’s path from millions of years ago (or last Wednesday, if you’re a fundie). Un-fooking-believable. Also saw Grand Coulee Dam (big yawn). Now camped at Kettle Falls in the Lake Roosevelt area. Good trip so far.
Re: the pronunciation of Chelan - I was once accosted by an English tourist pointing at a map and asking me which road to take to get to CHEE (as in cheese)-lan. I pointed him the right way while also casually inserting the correct pronunciation into my directions
Dry Falls and environs - I’ve been reading up on Glacial Lake Missoula, basically an absolutely immense Ice Age lake in what is now Montana. Seems there was a “finger” of a glacier that would flow down from Canada and, over time, completely block one end of a river valley. That would, of course, dam the river and eventually create this huge lake. In time, the water pressure would become great enough to burst the ice dam, and the entire volume of water would go roaring from Montana to the Pacific Ocean, annihilating everything in its path and carving up the landscape. This happened repeatedly over thousands of years, and is apparently responsible for much of the spectacular landscaping in Eastern Washington, including the Columbia River Gorge.
I’m sorry you were bored by Coulee Dam. It’s probably the most impressive mass of concrete I’ve ever seen…every time I see it. It brought water and power to farms and towns that didn’t have very much of either, and it made the Hanford Nuclear Reservation possible, and it’s probably provided employment to hundreds of thousands of people.
Of course, it’s also the major reason there are no falls at Kettle Falls…
Now, I’m no fundamentalist, but I am fascinated by the glacial Lake Missoula floods and as such know that they occurred between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago. The falls, Grand Coulee and the Gorge are no older than that. There is the distinct possibility that people were in the area when the floods happened.
There are large boulders as far south as Eugene, Oregon that were carried by the flood from Montana while embedded in ice.
We used to go fishing in and around Moses Lake, and I was fascinated by the potholes. Is there landscape like this anywhere else? (Not just the potholes – all of it.)
Should have been more specific. The tour was a bore, as the tour elevator is not functional. This means you can’t go into the dam, which is the most interesting part of it, IMO. The history of the place and the impact on the West is undeniable and huge, of course.
It’s estimated that the glacial flood that created many of the features (along with the repeated monster lava flows) was some 800 feet high and obliterated everything in its path. This must have been some kinda interesting place to see during those epochs.
The area is worth a repeat visit, and I plan to buy the book about Harlen Bretz, who was mocked and ridiculed for his theories about the Scablands and how they were formed by catastrophic floods, finally being vindicated when he was in his 70s.
True enough. However, the lava flows from the rift at Walla Walla were between 17 and 6 million years ago, burying entire mountain ranges under the massive issues.
I haven’t been into the dam since the late 50’s. I thought I had read where it was no longer allowed.
In one of their science buildings, Eastern Washington University used to have a huge relief “map” of the area covered by the recurring floods, with the dates of which flood went which direction. I’m sorry but I no longer remember which building it was in, or who made it. I had been unaware of the scope of the flooding until I saw that…it covered most of one wall. When I was still a student at Eastern, that map was one of the places I always took visitors from out of the area.
Twisp is a great little town. My best friend from High School does theater there. The bakery is good but there used to be an amazing breakfast place there but unfortunately it closed a few years ago.
