Dry Falls a wonder, despite lack of water

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Dry Falls a wonder, despite lack of water

By LAURIE WILLIAMS
Herald staff writer

Coulee City could have been a honeymooner's delight, a sister to Niagara Falls.

That is if the water hadn't run out 12,000 years ago.

Until then, a raging ice water flood plummeted over the now arid basalt cliff known as Dry Falls, south of the city limits.

The parched precipice, 113 miles north of Pasco in Grant County, stretches 3 1/2 miles and plunges 400 feet.

By comparison, Niagara Falls would look like a pathetic dribble. It measures one-mile wide, with a 165-foot drop.

Today, alas, visitors to the once wondrous Eastern Washington waterfall only can imagine the crush of water that poured over the lip and carved out the horseshoe-shaped landmark.

One telltale sign is the glistening lake at the foot of the steep rock face. Today, Dry Falls Lake is popular with anglers seeking plump trout.

The formation is so odd against the flat prairie that it helped trigger geologist J. Harlen Bretz's theory a series of massive floods sculpted Eastern Washington.

Bretz concluded Dry Falls formed when a torrent of ice and water poured out of the region that is now Western Montana during the ice age. A vast Canadian ice sheet, 4,000 feet thick in places, dammed rivers in Montana, Idaho and Washington.

The largest lake - half the volume of Lake Michigan - formed at present-day Missoula. When the ice dam broke, a cataclysm ripped through Idaho and Washington at 50 to 60 mph, draining the massive lake in just a few days.

The rampaging waters diverted the mighty Columbia River from its natural channel.

Bretz believed the process repeated nearly every 50 years for 2,000 years, creating among other geologic wonders, two giant cascades in the region.

One 800-foot waterfall formed north of Coulee City, but the glacial waters pulled apart the vulnerable basalt layers.

The undercutting action of the spilling water caused the falls to retreat 20 miles, to near where Grand Coulee Dam is today, before it self-destructed.

Dry Falls began near Soap Lake to the south and also ate away the landscape until it reached its current site.

Some scientists theorize the cliff was less of a waterfall and more of an underwater drop-off, 200 feet below the surface of the raging flood at its peak.

After the waters receded and the Columbia River returned to its original route around the plateau, Dry Falls was left high and dry.

And what remains, state parks officials describe as the skeleton of one of the greatest waterfalls in geologic history.

The Dry Falls Interpretive Center along state Highway 17 presents a spectacular view. The center is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, offering various displays on the history and geology of the falls and the region.

Admission is free. The center is wheelchair accessible. Rest rooms and a few picnic tables also are available. For more information, call 509-632-5214.

However, for a shadier picnic spot, drive about one mile south to Sun Lakes State Park, where you can cool off with a swim in the lake, rent a paddle boat or stay overnight in a cabin. The park's resort is operated by a private concessionaire. For more information call 509-632-5291.

About 10 miles south of the interpretive center, just off the highway, a primitive trail leads to some caves carved out by the ice-age flood waters. The pockets offered temporary shelter for prehistoric people, but the nomads apparently spent little time there, since few artifacts or markings have been found. A trail to the caves starts near the north end of Lake Lenore. In another cavity at Blue Lake, a few miles south of Dry Falls, hikers discovered one of Washington's most famous fossils in 1935.

The Blue Lake rhino fossil includes a few bone fragments and partial jaw found near a natural mold of the creature formed when the dead rhino was engulfed by a lava flow.

To visit the site of the mold you have to cross private property and climb a primitive trail to a narrow ledge 200 feet above the floor of the canyon, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.

An easier and safer way to view the rhino fossil would be to see the original and only cast of the mold.

Unfortunately, the mold is in storage at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Museum officials said the mold may be displayed in three years, when a new Northwest geological display opens.

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