Quick geography lesson: Palouse Falls is on the Palouse River. The Palouse River leads to the Snake River. which leads to the Columbia River and, ultimately, the Pacific Ocean.
Quick Geology lesson: Eastern Washington sets on a gigantic ancient basalt lava fields created during the Pleistocene Epoch which occurred from 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago. The land was then shaped by the Great Missoula Flood.
At the end of the last Ice Age, an ice sheet crept southward into the Idaho panhandle. It formed an ice dam that blocked the mouth of the Clark Fork River, creating a great lake called Missoula. It was 2,000 feet deep and contained more than 500 cubic miles of water-more water than Lake Erie and Lake Ontario combined! At some point the ice dam failed. The water exploded out at a rate 10 times the combined flow of all the rivers of the world. The incredible volume and force of the water and ice stripped away hundreds of feet of soil and cut deep canyons or "coulees". With flood speeds approaching 65 miles per hour, the lake would have drained in as little as 48 hours.
The ice dam reformed again and again. Lake Missoula Formed again and again. The dam would break again and again. Over approximately 2,500 years, the lake, ice dam and flooding sequence was repeated dozens of times. The land still shows the scars of those ancient floods. That carved landscape made the conditions right for the creation of Palouse Falls.
The falls are now part Palouse Falls State Park. In 2014, a bunch of local school kids persuaded the state officials in Olympia to declare Palouse Falls the Official State Waterfall Of Washington. Palouse Falls was also the site of the world record kayak highest waterfall plunge.
On April 21. 2009 Tyler Brandt, with a team for safety, rescue and filming the drop, made the 189 foot drop and set a world record for surviving the highest waterfall plunge. At the bottom of the falls, the force of the water shoved him 20 feet under water for 7 seconds. This caused a bit of concern from his crew and left Brandt gasping for air. Other than a sprained wrist, Brandt suffered no injuries. “I actually expected more of an impact,” he said. “Considering the waterfall, the injuries were pretty minor.”
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Quick Geology lesson: Eastern Washington sets on a gigantic ancient basalt lava fields created during the Pleistocene Epoch which occurred from 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago. The land was then shaped by the Great Missoula Flood.
At the end of the last Ice Age, an ice sheet crept southward into the Idaho panhandle. It formed an ice dam that blocked the mouth of the Clark Fork River, creating a great lake called Missoula. It was 2,000 feet deep and contained more than 500 cubic miles of water-more water than Lake Erie and Lake Ontario combined! At some point the ice dam failed. The water exploded out at a rate 10 times the combined flow of all the rivers of the world. The incredible volume and force of the water and ice stripped away hundreds of feet of soil and cut deep canyons or "coulees". With flood speeds approaching 65 miles per hour, the lake would have drained in as little as 48 hours.
The ice dam reformed again and again. Lake Missoula Formed again and again. The dam would break again and again. Over approximately 2,500 years, the lake, ice dam and flooding sequence was repeated dozens of times. The land still shows the scars of those ancient floods. That carved landscape made the conditions right for the creation of Palouse Falls.
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| Palouse River (Flickr user Ben Wentz/CC) |
The falls are now part Palouse Falls State Park. In 2014, a bunch of local school kids persuaded the state officials in Olympia to declare Palouse Falls the Official State Waterfall Of Washington. Palouse Falls was also the site of the world record kayak highest waterfall plunge.
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| Palouse Falls, Washington (Flickr user Mark Ludwick/CC) |
On April 21. 2009 Tyler Brandt, with a team for safety, rescue and filming the drop, made the 189 foot drop and set a world record for surviving the highest waterfall plunge. At the bottom of the falls, the force of the water shoved him 20 feet under water for 7 seconds. This caused a bit of concern from his crew and left Brandt gasping for air. Other than a sprained wrist, Brandt suffered no injuries. “I actually expected more of an impact,” he said. “Considering the waterfall, the injuries were pretty minor.”
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