Palouse Falls, Washington
The punchbowl was frozen. Fluted banners of ice hung from the black basalt walls. Palouse Falls plunged 185 feet into a dark hole in the solid lid of ice at its base.
The stunning site that greeted us when we walked to the brink of Palouse River, with its falls and canyon 500 feet straight down, was a first in all our Linblad Expedition visits to this isolated natural wonder.
Record low night temperatures for this early in the Columbia Basin set the stage for today’s visit to Palouse Falls State Park. It was a crisp, breathless-still morning with a fast thawing sun and cobalt sky when we landed in the Zodiacs for a school bus transfer and ride to the falls. Cecilia England, from Hermiston, OR, is our bus driver who leaves home at 5:30 a.m. and drives 210 miles round trip to make this connection possible for us every spring and fall.
This is a land of big sky, prairie, rim-rock, silence, soaring raptors and mule deer and the isolated ranch. At this time of year the punchbowl at Palouse Fall is in deep shade, so it doesn't thaw readily once it freezes.
Lewis and Clark first named this Drewyers River to honor expedition member George Drouillard, one of their best hunters. The misspelling was consistent in the journals. The Corps of Discovery stopped Oct. 12, 1805, at the juncture of the Snake and Palouse Rivers where Sea Bird anchored today while we did our bus, kayak and Zodiac excursions.
Because of the untimely death of Capt. Meriwether Lewis at age 35, their journals were not published as President Jefferson wanted and many of the original names attached by the Corps were lost. Appropriately, though, the river now bears the name of the tribe that had a great village at the confluence of the Snake and Palouse.
The punchbowl was frozen. Fluted banners of ice hung from the black basalt walls. Palouse Falls plunged 185 feet into a dark hole in the solid lid of ice at its base.
The stunning site that greeted us when we walked to the brink of Palouse River, with its falls and canyon 500 feet straight down, was a first in all our Linblad Expedition visits to this isolated natural wonder.
Record low night temperatures for this early in the Columbia Basin set the stage for today’s visit to Palouse Falls State Park. It was a crisp, breathless-still morning with a fast thawing sun and cobalt sky when we landed in the Zodiacs for a school bus transfer and ride to the falls. Cecilia England, from Hermiston, OR, is our bus driver who leaves home at 5:30 a.m. and drives 210 miles round trip to make this connection possible for us every spring and fall.
This is a land of big sky, prairie, rim-rock, silence, soaring raptors and mule deer and the isolated ranch. At this time of year the punchbowl at Palouse Fall is in deep shade, so it doesn't thaw readily once it freezes.
Lewis and Clark first named this Drewyers River to honor expedition member George Drouillard, one of their best hunters. The misspelling was consistent in the journals. The Corps of Discovery stopped Oct. 12, 1805, at the juncture of the Snake and Palouse Rivers where Sea Bird anchored today while we did our bus, kayak and Zodiac excursions.
Because of the untimely death of Capt. Meriwether Lewis at age 35, their journals were not published as President Jefferson wanted and many of the original names attached by the Corps were lost. Appropriately, though, the river now bears the name of the tribe that had a great village at the confluence of the Snake and Palouse.
