Making our way along right bank

I planned to take advantage of the “spring like” weather that was forecast for the last day of February, 2010. My wife, enjoys a part time job, was scheduled to work the weekend, so it looked like a solo trip for me, but I decided to see if by chance some good friends of ours (who we met a year ago through flickr), might consider joining me for a hike, picnic, and photo ops - - at the falls. They too live in Eastern Washington. I got the thumbs up from them so the trip was set.

I have been to Palouse Falls many times over many years but never tire of their impressive and unique beauty (a waterfall. But, I had never found the “route” down to the base of the waterfalls and I was hoping to find and hike it.

Jason and his wife (Fly Flipper of flickr fame) showed up right on time, as I knew they would and in quick order the three of us decided to give a route to the bottom of the canyon, that I had visually scouted from the canyon rim, before the arrived. The route worked out well and the river was just low enough that we were able to hike up the river’s “right bank” to the edge of the plunge pool.

The light was horrible for photographing from the bottom of the canyon but having a pretty spot like that all to ourselves, a sunny warm winter day, and the fun of getting together again - - all compensated for the challenging photo conditions.

I took both my Canon G10 (love it for landscapes, macros, and telephotos), and my Canon XSi (Just to please Fly Flipper, who almost always totes her XSi and two lenses, wherever she goes). I love the XSi for wildlife photography, but frankly didn’t think that would be an issue at Palouse Falls. The local marmots are so “tourist habituated” that getting photos of them with my G10 would not be a problem.

Well, she didn’t give me a bad time about but camera choice came into play on this trip and the hike to the river. While the three of us sat admiring the rainbow at the bottom of the falls, I spotted a big river beaver crossing in the current heading our way. Fly Flipper already had her XSi with her zoom telephoto attached. She was ready. On the other hand, I had my Canon G10 in hand (hard to find wildlife, follow wildlife, and get multiple shots with the shutter lag). MY XSi was in my day pack with the wide angle zoom on it. So we both shot away.

Fly Flipper got an outstanding close up of the beaver. I got one barely acceptable long range photo of it, when it dove and resurfaced on the opposite bank, but most of my attempts to photograph the beaver were miserable failures. I’m glad she didn’t say anything to me, as I was clearly in a position to “eat crow” for my camera selection. Jason, her husband, who would rather fly fish, than play around with a camera, thinks were both nuts, so with no camera, he was free to enjoy the sunshine and hiking, and let the two of us get “frustrated” with lighting, camera and lens selection. So be it.

After hiking back out of the canyon, we had a picnic in the sun, visited and talked of a Southern Utah trip we plan on taking in 2010 (Jason & Fly Flipper and OMT & my wife).
We then hiked the rim of the canyon above the falls, Jason for sun and exercise and the two toting cameras, constantly looking for just the right….photograph. A good time was had by all.

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These waterfalls are 200 feet high and were formed when the many ancient Lake Missoula floods scoured the entrire countryside, thousands of years ago. The size of the floods (especially the first one), were of unbelievable sizes.

About 12,750 years ago, during the last glacial period in North America a glacier from what is now Canada, moved down and blocked the flow of the Clark Fork River, near what is now Sandpoint, Idaho. For perhaps 50 years, the flow of the river slowly filled a huge lake behind the glacial dam.

The lake that was formed behind the glacial ice dam was HUGE (about half the size of Lake Michigan). When the lake level became high enough the ice dam “floated” and collapsed in a single moment, letting loose a flood of water of unimaginable size and power.

The flood scoured Eastern Washington, all the way down the Columbia River gorge to the Pacific Ocean. Rocks and boulders, that could have come from nowhere else in North America, except the bedrock around Missoula, Montana were washed or floated on ice bergs, all the way across Eastern Washington and even up the Willamette River valley of Oregon. These “erratic” boulders can be seen in farmer’s fields to this day, as can gigantic ripple marks from the flood.

This glacier advance, form dam, dam fail process would repeat itself over thousands of years. This means that there wasn’t just one gigantic flood but up to a couple dozen or more. The first one was the biggest, but the others were huge as well.

The date for early man’s presence in the Americas keeps getting pushed back farther and farther in time, and I personally believe, that “man” was there to witness these great floods. The Marmes Rock Shelter location was discovered and studied, where the Palouse River runs into the Snake River, a short distance down the Palouse River from the falls. Imagine that. Today if you view the Grand Coulee area of Eastern Washington; dry falls; Wallula Gap; or Palouse Falls - - you can only try to imagine the flood forces that formed this landscape. [Most information paraphrased from David Alt’s book: Glacial Lake Missoula and its humongous floods]. OldManTravels 2009

UPDATE: After visiting Palouse Falls at the end of March of 2009 (those photos are also posted on my flickr site), I decided to pull David Alt's book on the "Glacial Lake Missoula floods" from my book shelf, and reread it. Chapter 20 starting on page 123 specifically talks about how Palouse Falls was formed (entirely by the series of tremendous floods from Glacial Lake Missoula, during the ice age of about 12,500 years ago).

The original course of the Palouse River was not down the lower channel and over the current falls. It wound around the town of Washtucna, and from there down the present day Washtucna Coulee toward the town of Kahlotus. The Palouse River has only occupied its lower course to the Snake River, following the first of the many big floods that occured and those floods are the one that formed the entire canyon, falls, and plunge pool, you and I see at Palouse Falls today. OMT