Washington Surprises!

"Welcome to Washington!", the sign said, and we immediately saw that our mental images of rain forests and snow capped mountain peaks needed revision!  Our route was I-82 to Kennewick, then north on I-395 to US 155 towards Coulee Dam, and we found eastern Washington has much flatland, agriculture, desert, and buttes!   Oh, and not just history, but quite the pre-history to boast about!

We hiked up Johnson’s Butte near Kennewick to get a feel for this part of the state, and because it was such a great lookout, a view of the Columbia and Snake Rivers flowing into the valley.   They said even Mount Ranier can be viewed in the distance on a clear day!  As you can see, sagebrush and other dessert vegetation were in abundance, as well as a nice array of windmills to capture the breeze—which we wished we had more of that day as it was HOT!

Mud banks provide homes for birds?   Snakes?  Rodents?  Everybody?

Windmills

Winter wheat fields in distance

Peggy in the sagebrush.  Beautiful scent, and I don't mean Peggy!

North of Kennewick, we entered the “coulee” and “scablands” section of the state (good Scrabble words).   Coulees are dry riverbeds and scablands refers to the desert-like plateaus that surround them.  Interestingly, we began to see huge rocks, some the size of houses, scattered here and there on the landscape.  “Huh”, we thought,“erratics from some glacier”, familiar as we are with Northern Wisconsin geology.   We spent the night in a coulee on Banks Lake, not knowing the significance of the rocks or that lake until the next day.

Scablands and coulees

Huge rocks where they don't seem to belong!

Lily in the coulee

View from our Banks Lake campsite

So up the road we came to “Dry Falls” and the whole story comes out!!   During the last ice age, enormous lakes which essentially covered what is now the state of Montana built up behind ice dams many miles long.  Breaks in the ice dam would develop periodically, sending great walls of water, 1000 feet high, rushing downstream.   This happened repeatedly, and carved out the coulees of eastern Washington, the largest one of which is called Grand Coulee.   Dry Falls is now “dry” but in prehistoric times was a waterfall at least three times the size of Niagra Falls, with 400 foot high cliffs.  And remember those rocks?  The power of that rushing water, which they said was “ten times the combined flow of all the rivers in the world” carried them miles and miles and miles downstream.  As the Finlanders back home would say, “Uff-da”!!   

Dry Falls, Washington

Looking downstream

Our next attraction in this area was, you guessed it, a tour of the Grand Coulee Dam. We learned this was created in the 1930s to dam up the Columbia River in order to provide hydroelectric power, flood control to Portland, OR, and pump water into Banks Lake—yep, our Banks Lake—to be released for irrigating the entire Columbia Plateau, allowing extensive agriculture (read vineyards) there.   Grand Coulee Dam was, until recently, the largest concrete structure on earth, and a mile and a half long.  It is the largest hydroelectric dam in the world, and generates power for fully eleven of the western states.   The downside of its construction was the elimination of salmon in the Columbia River upstream of the dam and destruction of the culture of indigenous peoples, centered as it was on the salmon. The tour did include a trip into the bowels of the dam itself and a drive over the top, both of which were very impressive.   

Grand Coulee Dam

Lots of security checks required before starting on the tour

Pumps and generators

Driving over the top of the dam with view of pipes pumping water up into Banks Lake

Banks Lake from Coulee Dam

Driving to other side of dam, one mile away

Over the side...

...where Lake Roosevelt starts

Dam!  That was FUN!

The damming of the Columbia created Lake Roosevelt, and we camped beside it last night.  Sleep came easily, too, as earlier that day we took on the climbing of a very prominent butte called “Steamboat Rock”.   The hike provided lovely dessert scenes and phenomenal views from the top, but oh, boy, it was a rugged trail that got us up there! 

Steamboat butte on Lake Roosevelt as seen from the road

Peggy working on her fear of heights.

An 80 degree incline of loose rocks and scree formed the trailbed at times...YIKES!

Tomorrow we head north toward the Cascades.   It will be great to be cool, and see forests and snow again in this land of incredible diversity!