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World's Biggest Waterfall - Right in our own Backyard!
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Dramatic Dry Falls at day's end.
If you were asked what the world's biggest waterfall was, would you know?
Some might say Angel Falls in Venezuela. Others might venture to guess Yosemite Falls, or Multnomah Falls, or even Niagara Falls. But it's doubtful anyone would think of Dry Falls, just south of Coulee City and dry as a bone except for the small lakes at the base of these extnct cascades.
But the world's largest falls they were at one time, more than three and one half miles wide with a drop of more than 400 feet. That's about three times the width and depth of Niagara.
These falls were formed as water from the Lake Missoula Floods rushed down what is now the Grand Coulee, cutting away the basalt rock structure beneath them. When flowing water creates a waterfall, it starts cutting away at the rock beneath its lip, moving backwards and creating a canyon in front of the falling water.
This is what happened during the Ice Age floods, although geologists believe that when the flow of water was at its peak, the water would have been flowing a few hundred feet above the falls, so the 400-foot drop would look like just a slight inundation in a vast sea of swiftly flowing, muddy water.
When the water had at last all drained out of Lake Missoula, it found its way to the Pacific Ocean and Dry Falls stopped being a dramatic cascade of water, turning instead into a dramatic dry set of cliffs.
There are few features quite this dramatic in the Channeled Scablands, but Dry Falls is just one of dozens of fascinating places to see and explore.
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Look for my book, Bretz's Flood, in paperback at Amazon.com and most major bookstores.
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