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Why the Palouse River Hangs a Left
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Palouse Falls
The Palouse River drains a timbered, mountainous area in north-central Idaho, with elevations as high as 5,000 feet above sea level. When the river leaves the forest behind, it travels through rolling hills of rich soil where its waters are periodically tapped to irrigate crops.
Unlike most rivers, the Palouse is at its most wild state only as it nears its end. Leaving the rich farmlands of the Palouse region behind, the little river enters the dry, rocky terrain of the scablands, twisting and turning here and there, but essentially heading in a predominantly westward direction.
Then, at a point near the little farming town of Hooper, the Palouse River abruptly stops its westward trek and turns south, first tumbling over a stair step series of falls (Upper Palouse Falls) before entering a narrow canyon with 400 foot walls as the river heads for Lower Palouse Falls, a nearly 200-foot drop into a huge plunge pool. The Palouse then flows another half dozen miles through an even deeper canyon until joining the Snake River.
What intrigued geologist J Harlen Bretz most was the notion that this lowly little river could have carved two such deep canyons on its way to join the Snake. In his mind, it could not have done so. Moreover, features such as the deep canyons, the huge waterfall lip over which a narrow band of water drops, and the ridiculously large plunge pool at the base of the waterfall all pointed to one thing—that the Palouse River had at some point in its past been diverted by a much greater flow of water, and when that flow subsided, it left this puny little stream running through an oversized canyon over an oversized waterfall lip and into a grossly oversized plunge pool.
Investigating the area around Hooper, where the Palouse River makes its dramatic course change, Bretz saw that the land to the west became a valley, then a channel—the Washtucna Coulee—with 300-500 foot walls and a clear path west to join a south- running coulee—Esquatzel—which in turn leads to the populated area of southeastern Washington called the Tri-Cities (Richland, Pasco and Kennewick).
Why, Bretz wondered, had not the Palouse River simply continued west through Washtucna Coulee, an obvious drainage route, and met the Snake River farther south near the Tri-cities. Then it occurred to him that it had originally done just that, but some unimaginably great force had abducted the river, removed it from Washtucna Coulee, redirected it south and shortened its course by some 40 miles.
The Palouse River and its abruptly changing course is just one of many fascinating features found in the vast expanse of the Cheney-Palouse scabland.
For more information: Read my book, Bretz's Flood, available at Amazon.com and most major book stores.
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