We toured the upper and lower Grand Coulees and the boulder fields beyond where the coulees emptied the massive flows of water and rock. The area’s are too massive to share with pictures but I’ll post a few. Just understand what you’re seeing on these tiny pics here on HRF don’t do any justice whatsoever to the reality of the area.
One particular place of note is called Dry Falls. At it’s peak and when active these falls were 3.5 miles wide with a drop of more than 400 ft. By comparison , Niagara Falls are one mile wide and drop 165 ft. I’m going to post a picture from the overlook and another from the bottom of the former falls. There is road access to the base of the falls where there remains a lake that is fishable. What you will see in the pictures is just 2/3 rds. Of the actual falls as there is a great arm of basalt rock that didn’t wash away which divided about a third of the falls.
Sorry I can’t post better pictures, as good as phone cameras are today they’re just no match for the massiveness of the area.
We camped at Steamboat Rock State Park which is located in the upper coulee. The upper and lower coulees (divided by Dry Falls) is where the bulk of the flood waters flowed. After the floods receded these two coulees became dry other than many lakes left behind. Many years ago the federal Bureau of Reclamation created an irrigation system to supply water to what’s called the Columbia Basin. This is a large agricultural area that is located in a formerly very dry area. Now it is lush with crops. So the Bureau installed huge pumps and pumped water from Lake Roosevelt (the reservoir behind Grand Coulee Dam) into the upper coulee and created a lake (reservoir) called Banks Lake. Steamboat Rock remained in place during the great floods and out camp was just below it. The rock is in Banks lake and a peninsula of land leads to it and the campgrounds. Banks lake is 27 + miles long and is maintained as a recreation area for fishing, boating, camping etc. Steamboat Rock rises 800 + feet above the lake and the top is over 600 acres.
Steamboat Rock and our camp.
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This is the upper coulee and Banks Lake.
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Dry Falls from above, note the observation platform, pretty cool. This is the near 2/3 rds of the falls with the remaining third behind that huge jut of rock.
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This is the lower coulee looking southwest. This coulee has several developed lakes called the Chain Lakes. There is a state park and many resorts for recreation. This coulee extends for probably 12-15 miles before opening up into flatland.
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This pic shows the boulder fields which are located at the south end of the lower coulee. The flood waters first were spread out 15 plus miles wide and as the water receded it became contained by the coulees. At the end of the lower coulee all the rock that was scoured out of the land was deposited over a large area called the Ephrata Fan. It’s hard to tell from the pic but these boulders are sized from the size of a loaf of bread to the size of a car. They go for miles and miles, both in width and length. Please ignore the first pic, I would try to delete it but I know I’ll just screw up my whole post.
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