Snake and Palouse Rivers
Clear skies! Sunny day! We approached the confluence of the Snake River with the Columbia River just after breakfast and found that a tug and barge had beaten us to the Ice Harbour lock on the up-river side. While we dawdled waiting them to make their way down (river traffic has definitely picked up since The Dalles has opened for business), many of us out on deck sighted new species for our bird list: white pelicans, wood ducks, western grebes, to name a few.
During the morning we also took advantage of having Dr. Patrick Muffler on board from AAAS & Sigma Xi on board to speak about the formation of the Columbia River basin. It all comes down to basalt, and oh! What basalts!
In the afternoon we reached the Palouse River, originally called “Drewyers River” by Lewis and Clark. Drastically changed from those days of water over shallow bottom, the mouth of the Palouse is now about 40 feet deep, ideal for an anchorage, so we did. Downriver lies the Lower Monumental Dam, and the water impounded behind it covers its namesake, Monumental Rapids, and has made a backwater oasis. By Zodiac and kayak we had an afternoon of almost pure natural history (in an expedition focused primarily on the cultural history of Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery).
Some took a bus to the Palouse Falls, where the view overlooking the Palouse River canyon is impressive. The waterfall today consists of a 198 foot descent over stacked layers of basalt, the river squeezing between spires of the same at the top, ending in a plunge pool of enormous proportions – way too big to be explained by the trivial amount of water that collects there today. Thanks to our previous presentation, we knew that 17,000 years ago, a series (possibly as many as forty or more) of massive floods over a period of 2,000 to 3,000 years, poured giant rivers down this drainage, plucking basalt columns out of place, stripping accumulated topsoil off the face of the land, again and again, and creating mighty canyons. Today diminutive rivers flow at the bottom of channels that once carried tremendous amounts of water for short, very short, periods of time.
Down at the river-mouth, it was perfectly calm with no wind, ideal for Zodiacs and kayaks. The reflections of the arid, tawny hillsides and stark colonnaded bluffs made tempting subjects for photographers. Kayakers serenely paddled among the Tule grass and cat-tails, passing a beaver lodge under construction, already several feet tall. A distant mule deer, a porcupine almost hidden in a tree, and beaver heads briefly glimpsed at dusk before disappearing in the rushes were some of the wildlife we saw. A bald eagle hunted American coots, and caught one just before dark.
As night settled in, we also settled ourselves, but comfortably in the lounge to speak and think about the day. Topics for recap? Sargeant Gass and beavers.
