Day 5:
This is what at least half of day 5 looked like, leading us toward Bellingham, WA. In my opinion, eastern Washington State has really been overshadowed by western Washington State. This country is beautiful! The topography here is a geomorphologist’s dream… these rolling hills are enormous features formed by the catastrophic release of water from glacial Lake Missoula. And the colors of the fields are amazing contrasted against this newly paved road….
Instead of traveling I-90 across Washington, we choose to head up to Grand Coulee Dam, drive across the channeled scablands, and up over the pass in the Wenatchee National Forest.
Here’s Clayton posing in one of the diver’s suits that the men wore during Coulee Dam construction. They had lead weights on their feet so they could walk along the bottom.
After our quick stop at Grand Coulee Dam – we continued on through the channeled scablands. Here’s a giant basalt boulder that was emplaced by the floods.
And down into the channelized part of the scablands, this is what the valley walls look like. Layers and layers of basalt. If I were to take a stab at interpreting this photo, I’d say that there’s a channel carved out in the middle layer that was subsequently infilled with more lava. Although maybe it was a lava tube/channel given the weird cooling front/stress fractures surrounding it. And the top layer looks detached along a listric fault. But, I’m a sedimentologist – what do I really know? (any other ideas?)
We finally arrived in Bellingham around 4-ish if I recall – where we met up with the family. Here are Claudia and Clayton dining with cousins Olivia and Daniel.
The next part of our journey involved a lot of family and a very large Schooner.
Stayed tuned for Adventure West: Days 6-8….