Welcome to Palouse Falls State Park! This earthcache is located in a Washington State Park and thus there is an entry fee or a Discovery Pass needed to visit the falls and complete this earthcache. A day pass costs $10. A Discovery Pass is $30 and good for a whole year.
cid=7411C9181CAF6CB1&id=7411C9181CAF6CB1%218384&parId=7411C9181CAF6CB1%218369&o=OneUp" />This earthcache will give you some geological history of the falls and the area surrounding this beautiful area.
Palouse Falls is part of the Palouse River system. A little over 12,000 years ago, the falls and the river canyon beyond, were not here. In fact the Palouse River was not even at this location! To understand how the falls came to be, we have first figure out how the river relocated to its current location.
During the most recent episode of major ice-sheet expansion, between about 18,000 and 13,000 years ago, the Purcell Trench Lobe of the Cordilleran ice sheet advanced into the Idaho Panhandle in the area that is now occupied by Lake Pend Oreille, thus blocking the Clark Fork River drainage and causing Glacial Lake Missoula to form. At its largest, the lake was deeper than 2,000 feet deep at the dam and held over 500 cubic miles of water—as much as Lake Erie and Lake Ontario combined! The ice dam, however, was subject to repeated failure. When the dam broke, a towering mass of water and ice was released and swept across parts of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon on its way to the Pacific ocean. The peak rate of flow was ten times the combined flow of all the rivers of the world. The huge lake may have emptied in as little as two or three days. Over a period of years the glacier would advance, once again blocking the river, and the dam and the lake would form again. This process was repeated scores of times, until the ice sheet ceased its advance and receded to the north at the end of the Ice Age. It is assumed that the same processes would have occurred earlier during other glacial advances throughout the Ice Age, although most of the evidence for the earlier events may have been removed by the flooding that occurred during the last glacial advance.
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You can imagine what the power of all of that water would have done to the landscape of Eastern and Central sections of Washington. This bottled up water of Glacial Lake Missoula, once uncorked, was like a huge torrent of water not unlike pressurized water coming out of a fire hose which was pointed to the west at Washington sweeping away the wind blown silt (loess) that sat on top of the basalt bedrock. The force of the water was so strong that it not only carried away the loess but, also carried away portions of the fractured basalt bedrock. The force of the water and the repeated release of Glacial Lake Missoula, caused the formation of canyons or coulees in portions of Eastern and Central Washington. So, what happened to the Palouse River? Great question!
The Palouse River was gently flowing down what is now known as the Washtucna Coulee (Old Palouse Valley noted on the map below) running parallel to the Snake River and eventually joined up with the Snake River west near where the Snake River confluence with the Columbia River. A ridge separated the two rivers. However, with the repeated flooding from Glacial Lake Missoula, the landscape of the ridge changed with the formation coulees. One of these coulees became the current path of the Palouse River when it became the path of least resistance for the river to follow. With the repeated torrents of ice age floods, the formation of the falls and the river canyon beyond the falls was formed.
To get credit for this earthcache, you have to answer a few questions and visit a couple of different locations within Palouse Falls State Park to obtain your answers which are as follows:
Listed Coordinates
The listed coordinates take you to a perfect spot to view the waterfall and the river canyon beyond. Feel free to snap some pictures and include with your post (though this is not a requirement for the cache). There is also an interpretive sign here that may be of some assistance with the answering the following questions:
Looking at the area around the falls what type of rock do you see that looks as if the rock was chiseled or gouged by massive torrents of water?
Observe the cliffs across the river from where you are standing, about how many deep fractures do you see in the cliffs?
WP 2: Stealing A Stream - N 46 39.813 W 118 13.648
The second and final stop takes you to another portion of the park. From the information provided at the waypoint, the destructive power of the ice floods carved a maze of what? This damage extended how many miles and between what two geological features?
Please message me directly from the cache page (which is easiest) with your answers to these questions. DO NOT POST ANY OF YOUR ANSWERS IN THE YOUR LOG. Once you have sent me your answers, go ahead and log the find. If more than one cacher is in your group, please note ALL cachers in your party so that they can all get credit for the find. Cacher names not listed in a message or email to me with the answers, but have logged this cache risk having the found it log deleted.
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- This geocache has an approved Permit to be placed at this location on property managed by the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission. Visitors are responsible for acquainting themselves with policies and rules pertaining to State Parks areas.
- The following items may not be placed in the geocache: food, illegal substances, medications, personal hygiene products, pornographic materials, hazardous materials, or weapons of any type.
- By searching for the cache, visitors agree that they are responsible for their own actions, and acknowledge that neither the State of Washington nor the cache owner is responsible for any loss or injury that may occur in relation to such search.
- Report any incident, problem, or violation to State Parks staff.
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Acknowledgements
This earthcache would not be possible without contributions or inspiration from the following:
Tom Foster and Prof. Nick Zentner for their 2 Minute Geology Videos and use of maps/diagrams (as well as the inspiration for this earthcache)
Huge Floods.com web site - additional geological information.
Ice Age Floods Institute
Kevin Davis - Washington State Parks Ranger at Palouse Falls State Park.