Washington State

Carved away from the adjoining hillside by Ice Age Floods, the Bowl and Pitcher formation can be found within Riverside State Park in Spokane, Washington.

Learn about the events that shaped our region's geography while you play! Enjoy a 3-story Columbian slide tower, Glacial Dam splash pad, a log jam climber, an alluvial deposit fossil .

Primary visitor center for Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area which also contains exhibits and information regarding Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail.

Grand Coulee is the largest coulee in the Columbia Plateau and is probably the world’s finest example of a recessional cataract gorge.

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.

Steamboat Rock State Park is a wonderful place to camp, hike, boat and explore for signs of how the Ice Age floods carved out this grand coulee.

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 basalt and granite boulders now littering the Ephrata Fan were carried there by torrents of water that gushed out of a canyon called the Grand Coulee. Water and debris exploded from the mouth of the Lower Grand Coulee complex sending debris in a wide swath like pellets from the mouth of a shotgun. Velocity reduction at the coulee mouth and debris momentum carried large boulders a mile or more before they began to settle out of the slowing water stream.

Potholes Coulee is very similar to Dry Falls cataract located in Lower Grand Coulee; in that it consists of two arcuate alcoves separated by a relatively thin “rock blade”. Similar plunge pools (now filled with lakes) are also located at the base of the two alcoves in Potholes Coulee. Ancient Lakes are located in the northern alcove, while Dusty Lake occupies the southern alcove portion below the cataract.

Frenchman Coulee is an erosional feature left behind by the great Ice Age Floods, a spectacular dual coulee and recessional-cataract complex in the western Quincy Basin.