[hikerjo]

[Stomp]

With everyone whipped into an Eastern Washington geologic fervor, this seems a prime opportunity to pose a purely theoretical question: Let's say Person S has all day on or around the 27th of April to travel from La Grande to Bellevue, and would like to soak up some rock en route. The bulk of his geologic knowledge of the far East Side has been culled from this thread, as the sum of his previous exposure to said region has been through a car window as he rocketed along I-90. If I were Person S, and I'm not saying I am (I am), I would currently be doing google searches on Moses Coulee and Dry Falls, but my primary motivation is to do some light hiking and really get my hands dirty. Stumbling clumsily among dangerous chunks of weather-worn rock, trying to coerce columnar basalt to fall on my head, that sort of thing. It's all about the rocks, baby. Of course, if the weather turns out to be I'd just detour through the ol' Oregon side of the gorge and scope out some big waterfalls. Or perhaps linger all day in the La Grande Denny's ogling the super-hot waitresses. So many options. Any attempts to influence my decision-making would be appreciated. And I suppose it's finally time to crack open that copy of Roadside Geology I purchased on a big fat whim some time ago.

[Scouter]

The Dry Falls area is really awesome. I spent three days there on a college field study trip. We holed up at Sun Lakes SP, in one of the large group campsites with a dining hall at the north end of the park. The free time was great. I climbed up out of the bottom of the coulee up one of the side of the basalt mesas. I suppose I should have given more thought to snakes in all that rock. The view from the top was amazing, being able to look back down the coulee towards Lake Lenore. It was strange how flat the top of the mesas were. The falls must have been impressive with all that water flowing over them.

[kleet]

With a little help from my computer, I was able to recreate the cataclysmic flood that ensued when the ice dam at Lake Missoula broke. Pity the poor villagers and their condominiums!

[Newt]

Nice!! NN

[MooseAndSquirrel]

Cool animation job, Mr. Kleet! While viewing it I was struck with the thought that the Missoula Floods would be pretty awesome recreated by Hollywood special-effects wizards in a whiz-bang disaster movie. The storyline would have native peoples living in and around our Lake Missoula and further downstream of the impending flood waters, unaware in their contented state of the looming tragedy about to engulf them and forever change their lives. It could be a mixture of Dances with Wolves, The Towering Inferno, Titanic and Dante's Peak- all rolled into one! (Hey, maybe this isn't so far-fetched an idea...I could be sitting on a future gold mine here...on second thought....forget you ever read this.. it's a stupid thought, who am I kidding!!

[Newt]

[Dayhike Mike]

[Sore Feet]

I don't think there's a genetic predisposition in my family . My Dad likes to photograph garbage cans and National Park buildings (work related habit I guess), and my grandfather was into historical junk (churches, castles, graveyards, various wooden relics like the Contiki, etc), and my mother's side of the family is from Michigan, where there ain't no waterfalls. Guess I'll be relegated to passing on the gene.

[mpaul_hansen]

Newt ... A complex simulation of flood flows perhaps could be done using .. DAMBRK, [dam break] a program developed by ?NWS? ...it is used for instance to simulate water releases in case ie Mud Mountain Dam or other dam failed, and what the ensuing downstream inundation would be. Certainly not for the amateur, however.

[Newt]

Thanks for the lead. It looks like it would do the job. Know where I could get a freebie or one similar to try for an extended period of time? Newt