The vary large Banks Lake and the canyon it was in was our next big WOW monument as we drove south through towering cliffs and past miles of water.
What we learned along the way to the dam and after was very interesting and here is how it was put to us:
During the Ice Age, glaciers to the north blocked the Columbia River and forced it to find a new route. The river, swollen from melting glacial ice began to carve a new channel here. But that was only the beginning.
The river in Idaho found no way around its ice dam. The river filled its valley with a huge lake that flooded many square miles of Montana...until the ice dam broke. With the flow up to ten times the combined flow of all the rivers of the world, the lake emptied across Idaho and onto Eastern Washington. Much of the water rushed through the new channel opened by the Columbia River.
The turbulent water enlarged the channel and created huge waterfalls. Eastern Washington was scoured by many such floods, each lasting only a few weeks.
When the last flood subsided, large areas of Eastern Washington were left scarred, some with water, but others were left deep and wide dry channels called Coulees. This one the Grand Coulee, is the largest. Cutting across the Coulee is Dry Falls, this 3 1/2 mile wide and over 400 ft. tall group of scalloped cliffs was at one time the largest waterfall in the world.
With our new history lessen fresh in our minds we traveled south to the Columbia River Gorge to witness more of what the Ice Age did to this part of the country. It's amazing how high the walls are and how much water is flowing past while we were camped right on the bank.
After an interesting time in the canyons and gorges we drove to Vancouver for a one night stay at the Elks Lodge #823 before saying good buy to Washington and heading south over the bridge to Oregon.
LAUGH
LOVE
SanTony
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