Kathleen's Window: Hanford Reservation, a Geo-Fix, and Into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness

Tuesday and Wednesday, June 17 and 18, 2014

Greg was ready for a restaurant breakfast. Seriously, I have yet to understand this compulsion, so we went to the Waffle Caffe, ( yes, that's how they spelled it), and we did some serious eating before we drove out of Yakima towards Hanford and the infamous Hanford Reservation. The DOE owns it, and has been making a toxic mess of it for decades, but the biggest problem is the leakage from the world's first nuclear reactors and weapons research and manufacturing. Clean-up is still ongoing and the groundwater leaking into the Columbia River is still an issue. It is now surrounded by the Hanford Reach National Monument, meant to preserve the bend in the Columbia for recreation. A signpost at a rest stop nearby said that we could enter it from the north side of the river, so we changed course and drove the length of it and never found an entrance. We passed one insignificant-looking, unmarked gravel road that apparently was the only road into the Monument. We drove on. Looking at the map we discovered a geologic National Natural Landmark in the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge. A quick Google, and we drove over to the Drumheller Channels.

Huge fields of hops east of Yakima

The Hanford gatehouse

Looking across Hanford with the Columbia on the left

Greg's Commentary- Drumheller Channels is considered one of the best examples of the landform named Channeled Scablands. The name expresses the low value placed on these barren lands back in the late 1800s. The Scablands remain from a series of floods in Pleistocene time when a lobe of the continental icesheet dammed up the Clarks Fork River in extreme northern Idaho, creating glacial Lake Missoula, which covered much of Montana. Geologists estimate that Lake Missoula, which approached 2,000 feet deep at the ice dam, drained up to 90 times in catastrophic floods over a 3,000-year span beginning 14,000 years ago. The flood flow is estimated to exceed 10 times the combined flow of all the earth's rivers for the first day or so after each dam breach. Geologists have not found evidence of flood flows on this scale anywhere else.

Scoured basalt of the Channeled Scablands

Marshes and ponds in the former Pleistocene flood channels

The repeated floods scoured away topsoil and glacial sands and gravels and gouged many braided channels into the basalt bedrock, leaving a broad area of barren, steep sided basalt buttes (with tops all about the same height) separated by wetlands and marshy ponds. This area was not suitable for farming and was difficult to cross, so it was left alone. We were amazed at the volume and diversity of birdsong we could hear. No wonder this area is a wildlife sanctuary for hundreds of migrating and indigenous bird species, as well as many mammals.

After a quick geologic fix, it started to seriously rain, so we drove past Potholes Reservoir and hopped onto I-90 west to find the Columbia River. Along the way the highway department put up signs on the agricultural fields to name the crops growing in them. We called out “wheat, field corn, potatoes, peas, etc.” as we crossed the flat area in the rain. Finally we found the road over to the river and were rewarded with a spectacular sight of the mighty Columbia wending it's way between high basalt cliffs.

Numerous ponds in the scablands downstream of Pothole Reservoir

The Columbia River and its gorge

We drove north on the eastern shore with no more of a plan than to follow the river north to the Grand Coulee Dam. But, we needed a place for the night. Washington state parks have the same ridiculous expensive rates that are standard across the state, even in the less popular areas. It can be a little tougher to find out about boondocking in this part of the country, so with my newly minted senior pass, we are happy to find national parks and forests. But, you gotta' have a forest for a national forest, (most of the time), so we drove back up into the eastern slope of the Cascade Range at Wenatchee. The road followed the Wenatchee River valley for 20 miles up to 1,100' elevation and the town of Leavenworth.

Bavarian-themed Leavenworth

This little town after 30 years of depression, re-invented itself in the 1960's into a Bavarian tourist attraction, combined with a bit of commercial tackiness and a fun outdoorsy mountain vibe (such as the Bikes'n'Brew mountain bike festival). Nice, tasteful inns and restaurants, lots of festivals, and a spectacular scenic backdrop encompassing national forest lands, and the Alpine Lakes Wilderness with all kinds of recreation. We stopped at the forest ranger station in town, and drove eight miles outside of town through the Icicle Creek valley, to the Forest Service campground named Eight Mile. The sites along the river were taken, but we found a nice, dry, leafy site to settle in. The sun had begun to break through the clouds as we left Wenatchee, so, after we set up camp we walked along Icicle Creek.

Icicle Creek near our campground

The view up to Icicle Ridge

So that brings us to today, Wednesday. This area is so delightful that we packed up and drove higher into the valley to a ten site campground called Ida Creek, along Ida Creek. Here we found a spot right along the water with plenty of sunshine for the solar panels. Greg just returned from exploring the nearby forest service roads on his bike, and I have been happily tapping away with my hunting and pecking fingers. Tomorrow, maybe a hike? Twelve days until we have to be ready to board the ferry on northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Where to next?