We spent this beautiful, warm fall day cruising the Columbia River from John Day dam to the confluence with the Snake River. Spectacular columnar basalt flows lined the river and reminded us of the great fissures that spewed lava from southeastern Washington and northeastern Oregon between 7 and 17 million years ago. Over that vast time period repeated flows formed the layers that flowed down the ancestral Columbia and still line the river today. More recently these basalt walls were sculpted by the Bretz floods with 1000 feet of water accumulating behind Walula Gap and rushing toward the Pacific.
During the afternoon Captain Short squeezed the Sea Lion into the tiny, small boat harbor at Umatilla so that we could explore the McNary Wildlife Nature Area. Once ashore, Cecelia greeted us in her Mid-Columbia School District yellow school bus and shuttled us the short distance to a network of nicely maintained trails through wetlands along the river. Here we saw a variety of waterfowl, including wood ducks and widgeons; great blue herons and black crowned night herons and even a beaver hurrying across one of the waterways. It felt good to stretch our legs on this spectacular afternoon and, with the help of our naturalists, to get a close look at the riverside life.
