The Palouse River
Oh perfect day! In the quiet of early morning, the Sea Bird slid under the train trestle bridge at Lyon’s Ferry State Park (the highest working trestle in the nation) and dropped anchor in the pooled water at the mouth of the Palouse River. The Union Pacific Railroad Bridge was completed in 1914, and its original 200 foot height accommodates the railroad grade. By coincidence we were all at a barbecue lunch on the top deck when a loooong train started over the bridge at a snail’s pace, and took a good quarter hour to cross.
But the morning was occupied with Zodiacs, kayaks and a luxury school bus. Half of us went up the rolling hills until we could look over the channeled scablands so described by J. Harlan Bretz in the 1940s. This astute geologist visualized what others couldn’t or wouldn’t: giant floods of water rushing over the land in a matter of hours, scouring all in its path. It took many years for the Bretz Floods to be accepted as a reality of our geologic past. Palouse Falls are impressive, falling 185 feet to a plunge pool below. Put into perspective, however, it is just a trickle to what it must have been, twelve thousand years ago when the last ice dam broke and Lake Missoula tore across the Columbia River basin.
The temperature rose all morning. Where we had all been bundled up warmly on departing after breakfast, by mid-day we had shed our layers and sun-block was applied. The reflections of the basalt colonnade cliffs near our anchorage were precise. No breeze to chill us, and it was almost, and I mean almost, tempting for a swim.
The afternoon was filled with ice cream sundae slumber, a lock passage through Lower Monumental dam, and a fascinating talk on Dartmouth College and its influence on western expansion in the United States by Professor Jere Daniell. By late afternoon, the weather was such that many were on the bow in short-sleeves! In October!
Western grebes, red-tailed hawks, black-billed magpies, American coots, and Canada geese rode our wake as the Sea Bird continues her journey down the Snake to the mighty Columbia.
Oh perfect day! In the quiet of early morning, the Sea Bird slid under the train trestle bridge at Lyon’s Ferry State Park (the highest working trestle in the nation) and dropped anchor in the pooled water at the mouth of the Palouse River. The Union Pacific Railroad Bridge was completed in 1914, and its original 200 foot height accommodates the railroad grade. By coincidence we were all at a barbecue lunch on the top deck when a loooong train started over the bridge at a snail’s pace, and took a good quarter hour to cross.
But the morning was occupied with Zodiacs, kayaks and a luxury school bus. Half of us went up the rolling hills until we could look over the channeled scablands so described by J. Harlan Bretz in the 1940s. This astute geologist visualized what others couldn’t or wouldn’t: giant floods of water rushing over the land in a matter of hours, scouring all in its path. It took many years for the Bretz Floods to be accepted as a reality of our geologic past. Palouse Falls are impressive, falling 185 feet to a plunge pool below. Put into perspective, however, it is just a trickle to what it must have been, twelve thousand years ago when the last ice dam broke and Lake Missoula tore across the Columbia River basin.
The temperature rose all morning. Where we had all been bundled up warmly on departing after breakfast, by mid-day we had shed our layers and sun-block was applied. The reflections of the basalt colonnade cliffs near our anchorage were precise. No breeze to chill us, and it was almost, and I mean almost, tempting for a swim.
The afternoon was filled with ice cream sundae slumber, a lock passage through Lower Monumental dam, and a fascinating talk on Dartmouth College and its influence on western expansion in the United States by Professor Jere Daniell. By late afternoon, the weather was such that many were on the bow in short-sleeves! In October!
Western grebes, red-tailed hawks, black-billed magpies, American coots, and Canada geese rode our wake as the Sea Bird continues her journey down the Snake to the mighty Columbia.
