Afternoon: Hotel check in begins at 3:00 PM. Program registration is from 4:00 - 5:00 PM.

Dinner: At the hotel.

Evening: Welcome, orientation and introductions

Lodging: Red Lion River Inn

Meals Included: Dinner

Breakfast: At hotel

Morning: Depart shortly after breakfast to tour the channeled scablands, coulees and pot holes of the Spokane area.

Lunch: Picnic lunch.

Afternoon: On our way back to Spokane your instructor will help you identify within the landscape the remains of massive lava flows, potholes, pillow basalt, and spectacular coulees carved out by Ice Age rivers - truly wonderful terrain created 15,000 to 12,500 years ago by Glacial Lake Missoula.

Dinner: Dinner at Red Lion Inn

Evening: Optional walking tour along the Spokane River following dinner

Lodging: Red Lion River Inn

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: At hotel

Morning: Explore a part of the 'scablands' west of Spokane - giant raw scars that speak of a massive ripping away of the earth's surface - as we travel to the Grand Coulee Dam and on to Summer Falls and Soap Lake and finally to Dry Falls. During the Floods this was a waterfall ten times the size of Niagara Falls, the largest waterfall ever in existence on earth. Now this stark 400' high, 3.5 mile wide dry cliff overlooks a desert oasis filled with lakes and abundant wildlife.

Lunch: Picnic lunch in the falls area. Time to either explore the Visitor's Center, or meander on trails.

Afternoon: Continue to explore the Coulees, falls and the Lenore Caves as we head to Moses Lake for our night's stay. The Lenore Caves situated at the northern end of Lake Lenore are a series of overhangs along the cliffs at the lake. They are part of one of the largest volcanic regions on earth.

Dinner: Dinner at a restaurant near our hotel

Lodging: Shilo Inn - Moses Lake

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Other signs of the Great Floods, Basalt Cliffs, Hanford nuclear site and Historic Walla Walla

Breakfast: At hotel

Morning: Visit West Bar and other sites formed by the massive flood. Learn about the giant ripple marks left by the flood and plainly visible on aerial photographs. They went unnoticed for many years simply because their immense size makes their pattern and symmetry almost indistinguishable from the ground. Vist Pothole reservoir whose "Potholes" were created by the flood waters and the subsequent addition of Sullivan Dam by the Columbia Basin Project which raised the water table high enough to allow these topographical depressions to become lakes.

Lunch: Sack lunch at historic wayside

Afternoon: Travel to Quincy Basin where the flood waters carried huge boulders of basalt and granite from the bedrock along the flood's course and scattered them across the basin as the waters slowed. Fields are now filled with thousands of boulders, some the size of a small house.

Continue to the Hanford nuclear site which was a producer of plutonium from 1944 through 1991 as part of the Manhattan Project with as many as 9 reactors running in the late 50's and early 60's. From 1964 - 1971 eight reactors were slowly shutdown and prepared for decontamination and decommissioning. The remaining reactor was converted to produce electricity, as well as plutonium and continued to operate until 1991.

Dinner: Dinner on your own in historic Walla Walla.

Evening: Optional walking tour of historic downtown Walla Walla

Lodging: Best Western Walla Walla Suites Inn

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch

Breakfast: At hotel

Morning: Travel to Twin Sisters at Wallula Gap. Twin Sisters are two pillars of basalt that jut from the cliffs along Wallula Gap overlooking the Columbia River. Geologists say the rock formation is the result of erosion from the great flood. A Cayuse legend states that the natural monument was formed when Coyote, an animal spirit, fell in love with three sisters, then became jealous of them and turned two into stone. The third was turned into a cave, says the legend. A trail here is short and provides some amazing views of the Wallula Gap on the Columbia River.

Wallula Gap restricted the outflow from the floods creating massive Lake Lewis which covered the entire Pasco Basin, most of the Quincy Basin, and Yakima Valley, much of the Ahtanum Valley, and the valley of the Walla Walla River and its main tributaries. Floodwaters also backed up the Snake River well beyond present-day Lewiston, Idaho. An estimated 3,000 square miles of land were under water.

Lunch: Lunch in Dayton

Afternoon: After lunch, we will continue to Palouse Falls for a dramatic view of one of the most beautiful waterfalls in the state of Washington. Palouse Falls drops from a height of 198 feet. After this amazing falls travel through Snake River/Palouse country, where you'll see the rich farmland that thrives from rich soils deposited by the Floods.

Dinner: Closing Dinner at our hotel celebrates the amazing terrain we have traversed, the powerful forces of nature and the people of the Northwest who have adapted to this, including our own group of intrepid explorers!

Lodging: Red Lion River Inn

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: At hotel. Departures after breakfast.

Meals Included: Breakfast