Palouse River Canyon
During this voyage along the Columbia and Snake Rivers we have discussed events that shaped the landscape long before Lewis and Clark passed through this rugged country. From a geologic perspective, one of the most significant of these events were the great Ice Age floods that scoured the landscape more than 12,000 years ago. The tremendous walls of water that repeatedly swept across this country are almost unimaginable. These events -- popularly called the Bretz Floods, after J. Harlan Bretz, the man who first proposed this “outrageous hypothesis”-- stripped the land of its soil cover, created deep side canyons called coulees, and steepened the canyon walls to leave behind the great waterfalls that make this area famous.
This morning just after sunrise the Sea Lion arrived at the scenic Palouse River Canyon, one of the best places to view some of the evidence of the great floods. Here we would see sheer canyon walls, deep side canyons, and huge gravel bars – all evidence of the tremendous floods that swept through here thousands of years ago.
After breakfast we set out to explore the canyon. Half of the group took a short bus trip up to Palouse Falls (shown in today’s photo) where the Palouse River plunges over 180 feet into the canyon below. Meanwhile, the rest of us enjoyed a Zodiac cruise upriver beneath the walls of basalt that tower hundreds of feet about the water. Later, a group of adventurous souls took to the water in sea kayaks and paddled their way several miles upstream.
Thrilled from this morning’s adventures, we all returned to the ship in time to enjoy a barbecue lunch prepared by the crew, complete with an ice cream Sunday bar in the lounge. The remainder of the day we spent watching the scenery go by as the Sea Lion sailed down the Snake River towards its confluence with the mighty Columbia.
During this voyage along the Columbia and Snake Rivers we have discussed events that shaped the landscape long before Lewis and Clark passed through this rugged country. From a geologic perspective, one of the most significant of these events were the great Ice Age floods that scoured the landscape more than 12,000 years ago. The tremendous walls of water that repeatedly swept across this country are almost unimaginable. These events -- popularly called the Bretz Floods, after J. Harlan Bretz, the man who first proposed this “outrageous hypothesis”-- stripped the land of its soil cover, created deep side canyons called coulees, and steepened the canyon walls to leave behind the great waterfalls that make this area famous.
This morning just after sunrise the Sea Lion arrived at the scenic Palouse River Canyon, one of the best places to view some of the evidence of the great floods. Here we would see sheer canyon walls, deep side canyons, and huge gravel bars – all evidence of the tremendous floods that swept through here thousands of years ago.
After breakfast we set out to explore the canyon. Half of the group took a short bus trip up to Palouse Falls (shown in today’s photo) where the Palouse River plunges over 180 feet into the canyon below. Meanwhile, the rest of us enjoyed a Zodiac cruise upriver beneath the walls of basalt that tower hundreds of feet about the water. Later, a group of adventurous souls took to the water in sea kayaks and paddled their way several miles upstream.
Thrilled from this morning’s adventures, we all returned to the ship in time to enjoy a barbecue lunch prepared by the crew, complete with an ice cream Sunday bar in the lounge. The remainder of the day we spent watching the scenery go by as the Sea Lion sailed down the Snake River towards its confluence with the mighty Columbia.
