Wandering West Day 15 - Unexpected Majesty

FEDERAL WAY, WA – Today I drove from Spokane, WA to Federal Way, WA (20 minutes south of Seattle). I had planned to stop at the Grand Coulee Dam on the way, a detour off the interstate. That detour led me through what is called the “Scablands” of Washington.

325 miles

God of the Gadgets

I love my gadgets, iPod, GPS, cell phone, PDA, digital camera. But they all need power or they are useless. So I dubbed Grand Coulee Dam their god. Grand Coulee Dam has the third largest hydroelectric power capacity in the world. The other two dams are in South America and it will be fourth once the Three Gorges dam is completed in China. It was first when it was built.

Grand Coulee Dam

Scablands

Don't you just love that word? The geological history of Easter Washington state is remarkable and hard to summarize here. Just imagine lakes, floods, rivers and waterfalls on a scale that dwarfs anything that exists today. In a nutshell, there were lakes that covered much of Montana damed up by glaciers. When those glacial dams burst, the water rushed through the columbia river basin, from Montana, through eastern Washington state, and out through Oregon. This happened many times. The geological formations created are gigantic. The story of how this geological story was uncovered (by J. Harlen Bretz) is also interesting but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
Scabland Geology
J. Harlen Bretz
Channeled Scablands
Missoula Floods
On the way back to the interstate from Grand Coulee, I passed Dry Falls State Park. I almost didn't stop and you can't quite see it from the road, but aren't you glad I did:

Dry Falls