Drumheller Channels & The Great Blade

April visit to Drumheller Channels and Lower Grand Coulee.


Balsamroot and lupine near Lake Lenore seemed to be at peak bloom.

I wasn't able to drive straight through from Pasco to the lower Grand Coulee. A side trip through Drumheller Channels led me to an unscheduled hike.

Drumheller Channels

"It is a marvelous region of scabland buttes and knobs, canyoned channels, rock basins interrelated in a complex unparalleled elsewhere, even in the scablands." - J Harlen Bretz 1928

Lower Grand Coulee - Looking north
Google Earth vantage point is just north of Soap Lake, WA.
1. Great Blade, 2. Alkali Lake, 3. Blue Lake, 4. Park Lake.
Note huge flood channel east of the Great Blade.

One of many caves found near Lake Lenore. Interpretive display at Dry Falls shows Native Americans utilizing caves for shelter. I've been told that the caves were used like a garage (for storage) rather than shelter. Signage along highway will direct you to an interesting cluster of caves that were formed during Ice Age Flood events.

BONUS: Embedded video at bottom of page was shot in another of the Lake Lenore caves. You'll need to turn on speakers. Thanks for posting video Glen!


Pothole

I like to park near mile-marker 83 and hike through cut into the east channel. Some incredible evidence of high-energy flooding can be found in this area. Great Blade - top right.

View Larger Map

Check out those potholes! Use your mouse to move around and explore the area.

I usually park between the 17's - Small pull-off (east) just big enough for a couple cars. The guy in your rearview mirror isn't expecting you to be pulling over here. Be careful! The longer gravel parking strip at top left is also available.

Once you get parked, the hike up through terraces to east channel is easy. You'll pass through a fence opening with a WDFW "No Vehicles" sign.

Strange place to find this thing? Angular erratics resting in flood channels isn't something you often find. Several large ice-rafted erratics are located along the east margin of this channel, but this piece of argillite is the largest erratic I'm aware of out near the center of the channel where the bedrock had a hard time sticking around. Great Blade in distance. The boulder does sit on the crown of a basalt formation and must have been carried here on one of the last floods to reach this level.

Several other erratics surround the piece of argillite pictured above. Rounded erratics like this are more typical of what you can expect to find in flood channels containing dramatic errosional features. This type of erratic would have started its journey in an iceberg before dropping into the floodwaters or grounding at some point only to be tumbled in the next Ice Age Flood. Angular corners on bedload carried erratics would have quickly been rounded by impacts with bedrock and other boulders carried in the floodwaters.

Orange star marks argillite erratic in previous photo. Yellow stars identify surrounding granodiorite erratics.

Angular erratics are sometimes found (in high-energy flood channels) wedged in or behind some sort of structure that provides shelter. Earlier in the day I found these angular erratics wedged into a notch in the basalt while hiking near Lower Hampton Lake.

They should be safe here for another flood or two but once the downstream lip of basalt is removed, they'll be introduced to the bedload and headed for lower Crab Creek.


Two examples of typical erratics found in the Drumheller Channels.

Click arrow to play a short video I shot later in the day from the top of the Great Blade. You'll get a better look at the east channel from up here.

THERE IS NO TRAIL to follow if you want to visit the top of the Great Blade. Bretz's 1932 "Grand Coulee" publication led me to believe that I'd find a find a way to the top.

"The highest place on this cliffed ridge is literally a blade of rock, unscalable except at the south end." - J Harlen Bretz

It took a little time to reach the southern terrace (some people will not like the route). Once I got up there, all I needed was a little help from "The Watchdog" to stand on top.

Another pothole in the east channel.



The first bitterroot blooms (my favorite wildflower) I've seen this year.


One wall of this pothole has been opened up. Pretty quiet around here today.

Years ago they made some noise in this part of the coulee. Check out the B&W footage in Youtube video below!

"I know! Let's dump it in Lake Lenore!"
Turn speakers on and click arrow if you haven't seen this before (AMAZING).


South end of The Great Blade.


Nice fang!
I assume this was once part of a bobcat?


SR 17 (AKA ... "Coulee Corridor") crosses floor of the Lower Grand Coulee between Lake Lenore and Alkali Lake.

Coulee Corridor Home
Coulee Corridor Ice Age Floods Page


View Larger Map
Use your mouse to navigate Google map of area shown in previous photo.



Great Blade summit plateau.



J Harlen Bretz featured a similar photo in his 1932 publication "THE GRAND COULEE". Bretz used caption below to describe image:

Ridge between the monoclinal and synclinal channels, lower Grand Coulee. Looking north from the Great Blade. The lake surface is about 250 feet lower than the synclinal channel floor, and the ridge is about 75 feet higher. Hanging valleys west of the lake were once continuous across both lake canyon and ridge to the synclinal channel.

Interesting plateau


Unless you tell me differently ... I'm guessing Pothole A merged with with a pothole once located at C creating a small channel that will be joined by Pothole B during future floods. The A-C area will then join channel at top right creating Mesa D. Next photos shows examples of mesas lower in the east channel.


East Channel Mesas


Nice elevated walking surface between main channel and pothole.


Great Blade summit plateau. Red arrow points to "Watchdog Rock".
The flowers on this upper terrace were pretty.


Watchdog Rock came in handy as I tried to reach the top of the blade. Once my foot was on the Watchdog's shoulder, I had it made. Pretty cool that he's got a tail.


Not sure why someone felt the need to mark up the Watchdog???


BACK TO DRUMHELLER
I've always liked the basalt column w/face that looks out over Lower Hampton Lake.


View south to confluence of lower Grand Coulee and east channel. Note elevation difference.



Arrow points to pothole with smooth upper walls. I marked its location on my GPS several years ago. When visiting this area I always take the time to walk over and marvel at the "Polished Pothole". I haven't found another one like it.



My pack sits on rim of the "Polished Pothole".



Bretz wrote about this channel:

The higher eastern channel has cataract ledges across it 50 to 75 feet high, rock basins on its floor 100 feet deep, and a maze of minor anastomosing channels channels and buttes.

Nice clump of flowers thriving on top of the Great Blade.



East Channel
The floods drilled many incredible potholes into the floor of the east channel, including a couple huge ones at the south end. These potholes are amazing but I still have the Deep Lake area potholes at the top of my list.


Drumheller Channels / Columbia National Wildlife Refuge.


The huge system of scabland channels east of the Frenchman Hills sure stands out in this Google image. Irrigated farmland served by the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project borders the 8-mile-wide Drumheller Channels on the east and west. The Bureau of Reclamation uses several of the channels cut by Ice Age Floods to move irrigation water from the Quincy Basin to the Othello Basin.

1. Potholes Reservoir
2. Othello, WA


Irrigation water fills many of the rock basins and potholes in the Drumheller Channels. The habitat created provides excellent opportunities for wildlife observation to Columbia National Wildlife Refuge visitors.


Google aerial image shows:
1. Pothole near Lower Hampton Lake.
2. Large pothole shown in previous image (foreground).
3. Irrigation channel cut by the USBOR at lower end of Long Lake (shown in next image)


The floods didn't leave channels everywhere the USBOR needed them to move water between the Quincy and Othello Basins.


Pothole near Lower Hampton Lake shown in aerial photo above as "1".


This pothole is impressive to view in person (shown as #2 in aerial above).


White Pelican - Lower Hampton Lake


Signs introduce visitors to parts of the refuge trail system.





Found this guy on Youtube - Bagpipes in Lake Lenore cave w/sound.

Spring Coulee (East Rim)

- Click any image to expand -

Looking northwest to Billy Clapp Lake from road.Farming operation above trimline - top left.


No violations today ... I was unarmed and alone.

Last month I posted a few photos and text after a hike down the west side of Billy Clapp Lake.

See: Billy Clapp (West Side)
As I walked the west side in October, I was looking through binoculars at some of the flood features above the east shore and decided that I'd need to get a closer look. Saturday I noticed that Accuweather had a sunball symbol on Sunday ... So off I went (I wish I'd have looked at the numbers they had next to the sunball). When I started hiking it was 18 degrees ... Gloves and a warmer coat would have been nice.

The approach I took is described by State Fish & Wildlife as: "A primitive parking area on the east side of the Billy Clapp Reservoir that is about two miles from the west end of county Road 26 NE off of county Road Q NE."


No shortage of deer between Wilson Creek and Billy Clapp Lake.

I was surprised at the number of deer, ducks and geese I saw during my hike. The State doesn't seem to think much of the area as a refuge. Paragraph below from Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife site. The two-page ownership map it provides is pretty good. - See link below.

Billy Clapp area ownership map
Columbia Basin Wildlife Area

The Billy Clapp Lake unit is 4,000 acres along what was originally called Long Lake Reservoir but renamed in honor of one of the originators of the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project. The natural coulee was dammed on the lower south end (Pinto Dam) to create the reservoir. Water cascades into the upper end of the reservoir from the Main Canal creating Summer Falls. Basalt cliffs of varying heights encompass the reservoir. Most of the shoreline is too steep and rocky to support wetland or riparian vegetation, and the uplands are a mix of poor quality gravelly soils and basalt outcroppings. Vegetation varies from the fire-caused cheatgrass or bunchgrass communities to native woody shrubs on talus slopes. BOR maintains public parking, and boat launching is available on the north end of the lake. The Stratford Game Reserve encompasses nearly all the public land in this unit. Originally designated to provide a resting area for migrating waterfowl each fall, public use and changing migration patterns have made the Game Reserve less effective.

From the Grand Coulee

THREE ICE AGE FLOOD CHANNELS

Not all of the Grand Coulee flow entered the Quincy Basin via Lower Grand Coulee. Water that escaped the Grand Coulee cut channels around High Hill and Pinto Ridge. These channels carried substantial flows and became known as Dry Coulee and Spring Coulee (The reservoir created in Spring Coulee is today named Billy Clapp Lake). Floodwaters flowing through Spring Coulee fed into the Crab Creek channel prior to entering the Quincy Basin.

As stated in the October post - J Harlen Bretz called Spring Coulee:

"A fine scabland canyon with castle-like buttes, lateral subsidiary canyons, and cataracts notching its walls"


Bureau of Reclamation Benchmark.

Between 1946 and 1948 the Bureau of Reclamation constructed Pinto Dam at the south end of Spring Coulee. The Coulee is one of many Ice Age Flood features used by the Bureau as part of the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project.

Surveyed by the USBOR 10 years prior to Pinto Dam construction.

It was pretty cool to take a few minutes and think about the surveyors walking the Ice Age Floods region in the 1930s. In his book "Grand Coulee Harnessing a Dream"- Paul C. Pitzer describes the surveyors searching the channeled scablands of eastern Washington for potential storage reservoirs, dam sites and canal routes.

Benchmark - GPS
N 47°28.910'
W 119°14.530'

The features I was most interested in on this side of the coulee were several potholes and a group of "Drumheller" type channels just east of the potholes.

The potholes were formed during the Glacial Lake Missoula flood events that swept over eastern Washington as recently as 15,000 years ago. Powerful whirlpools (sometimes referred to as underwater tornados) known as kolks, scoured out these holes.

WIKIPEDIA DEFINES KOLK: (also known as colc) is an underwater vortex that is created when rapidly rushing water passes an underwater obstacle in boundary areas of high shear. High velocity gradients produce a violently rotating column of water, similar to a tornado. Kolks are capable of plucking multi-ton blocks of rock and transporting them in suspension for some thousands of meters.

In his book "On the Trail of the Ice Age Floods", Geologist Bruce Bjornstad explains the creation of Rock Basins and Potholes: "Fast-moving floodwaters passing through scabland channels further gouged into the basalt, scouring out rock basins and augering deep holes into basalt. Like a powerful vacuum cleaner, floodwaters actually sucked up all the loose material off the land surface, including huge columns of basalt, taking advantage of any weakness in the rock, such as fractures."


Google Earth image with pothole ID numbers I'll use below.

To view image of pothole #4, you'll need to open the October post and scroll down to the pothole image.

Remember ... You can click image to enlarge.


Pothole ID #1

The picture doesn't do this pothole justice. This is one fine pothole! I'll return in the spring and try to get a better shot as the scale just doesn't show here.

Pothole ID #2

Pothole ID #3

During our lunch stop on the October trip, we noticed a "hanging pothole" on the other side of the coulee. Erosion of the main channel has opened up one side of the pothole. Future megafloods will finish the job and remove all traces of this pothole before going after potholes #1 and #2.

Many shallow potholes are found in this area.

These smaller kolk carved basins seem popular with the local wildlife. Game trails lead to each of them.

I'll embed a Google Map at the bottom of this post. If you switch the map from Terrain (TER) to Satellite (SAT) and zoom in, you'll be able to search the area and find many more potholes on the bench east of Billy Clapp Lake.


Several nice mesas near the lake.


A smaller version of "Hat Rock".


Hard to hide with those pointy things sticking out of your head.


Google Earth image shows Giant Current Ripples above Billy Clapp Lake


For scale you can open the October post where I posted an image of Bruce Bjornstad standing on one of the ripples shown in this shot. The mix of farmland, ripples and a massive flood channel remind me of a similar spot closer to home ... see photos below.



Giant Current Ripples in Washtucna Coulee -
Note farmer on tractor at top left.


Same shot but a little wider angle. Huge flood bar being removed at coulee floor. If you look to the right of the quarry there seems to be one ripple mark left.

Another set of Washtucna Coulee giant current ripples


Borrow pit in ripple-covered flood bar exposes layer of windblown loess deposited since the Ice Age Floods.




South of the coulee along Highway 28 a historical marker gives a brief history of the area:

HISTORY OF THE STRATFORD AREA
Indians camped along Crab Creek in Stratford to gather roots and other food. The main Indian trail came past Stratford across the creek. The Indian trail branched here & one went past Pinto Dam. LT Symons came past here while laying out military wagon road from FT Walla Walla to Camp Chelan in 1879. Old wagon road from Waterville to Ritzville came past here in 1888. Railroad built in 1892. Early apple orchards were irrigated from Brook Lake in late 1890's. Pumphouse still standing. Stratford platted in 1903. Crab Lake drained by local pioneers in 1909 for farming purposes.
Grant County Historical Society