Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail Partner Visitor Centers

The only archaeologically verified campsite of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and tradition homeland of the Selis Qlispe people. Travelers' Rest State Park lies in heart of ancient Glacial Lake Missoula. Explore the surrounding hillsides for strandlines indicating various lake levels during the Ice Age floods period.

The Montana Natural History Center maintains an interpretive exhibit in cooperation with the Glacial Lake Missoula Chapter of the Ice Age Floods Institute, where you can watch interactive video shorts on floods features in this area, view artifacts from the life of J.T. Pardee, who lived and did his research near here, and find books and brochures about the Ice Age Floods.

From 13,000 to 15,000 years ago, Paradise and the entire Clark Fork River Valley were under a massive amount of water that stretched from an ice dam at the Idaho border to the Bitterroot Mountains. In subsequent events, the ice dam failed and water rushed out carving the landscape in Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington. This exhibit, a stop on the Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail, offers both visual, experiential, and text-based interpretive information.

Built at the location of Glacial Lake Columbia and at the head of the Grand Coulee signs of the Missoula Floods can be found throughout the region.

As you enter Sun Lakes-Dry Falls, you may feel like you're on another planet. The park is surrounded by one of Washington's most striking and historically significant landscapes. Dry Falls is a geological wonder of North America. Carved by Ice Age floods more than 13,000 years ago, the former waterfall was once four times the size of Niagara Falls. Today, the 400-foot-high, 3.5-mile-wide cliff overlooks the canyon below.

The REACH Museum shares the natural and human history of the Tri-Cities and the surrounding area, including the story of the Manhattan Project. The museum’s main focus of interpretation is the last free-flowing (undammed), non-tidal section of the Columbia River, which flows by the Hanford Site and was instrumental to the site’s plutonium production.

When you visit Cape Disappointment State Park today, you certainly won’t be disappointed in what you find. It’s an amazing park that’s home to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. Perched on a cliff 200 feet above the pounding Pacific surf, the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center shares the story of the Corps of Discovery’s journey, focusing particularly on their Pacific Coast stay during the winter of 1805-1806.

Columbia Gorge Discovery Center & Museum is located on a 54-acre point of land adjacent to the Columbia River and is the interpretive center for the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. This area includes one of the oldest continuously occupied places in North America (over 11,000 years) and parts of the Lewis and Clark and Oregon Trails.

A unique highlight of the Tualatin Public Library is its striking display of an articulated mastodon skeleton, which is mounted in front of an etched-glass image of a mastodon. Tualatin has been named as a partner on the Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail. In partnership with the Tualatin Historical Society, the Library also currently displays several other Ice Age relics.

Visit the Tualatin Heritage Center to see their impressive collection of ice rafted erratic boulders which were all found in the area.