You’re invited to join us June 6-8 in Spokane, WA, hosted by the IAFI Cheney-Spokane Chapter
Last year, the IAFI Puget Lobe Chapter embarked on an expanded multi-day format for the annual IAFI field trip at Dry Falls State Park within the Grand Coulee. This is the most iconic and best known example of all the erosional landscapes cited by J Harlen Bretz within the scablands, as proof that only gigantic Ice Age flood event(s) could have created these features. The membership response was far beyond expectations, with over a hundred participants and rave reviews.
June 6-8, 2024, the IAFI Cheney-Spokane Chapter plans to host an equally interesting and educational annual meeting, the IAFI Cheney-Spokane Chapter June Jamboree, in the Spokane Valley area north of the classic Channeled Scabland. We will explore a wide range of classic and historic sites in the most energetic “proximal region downstream from the source of the flood outburst, before dispersing down the channeled scablands and coulees.
The landscape north of the Channeled Scablands is so distinctly different that Bretz felt sure it must have been covered by the southern extent of the glacial ice sheet and that the outburst of glacial melt waters from beneath the Spokane Glacier was the agent for creating the Channeled Scablands. Bretz named the debacle forming the scablands the Spokane Flood, and took another three decades before he acknowledged that the floodwaters came from glacial Lake Missoula.
In the last two decades we’ve come to realize that the Spokane Valley area is key to our understanding of Late Wisconsin megaflood deposits within the Spokane River basin. You won’t want to miss our attempt to show why the flood path landscape north of the Cheney-Palouse scabland looks so different, whether these differences warrant major revisions to the current Missoula megaflood theory, and why we should go back to calling those deluges the Spokane Floods, as Bretz did. In fact, we’ll be going to some of the very sites that J Harlen Bretz showed to the Princeton University geological excursion field trip in the summer of 1926. If you have been following Nick Zentner’s live stream on the Ice Age Floods A-Z, you will get to be part of an ongoing discussion of the events that Nick is puzzling over.
Take a look at our agenda and you’ll see something there that should interest each and every IAFI member. Sign up for the greatest flood event party in the past 14,000 years.
Dr. Linda B. McCollum,
President of the IAFI Cheney-Spokane Chapter
View/Download AGENDA with a wide variety of events for you to pick from!
Thursday, June 6
Beginning at 5 pm, Michael Hamilton, formerly with the US Bureau of Mines and the Washington Geological Survey, will lead a late afternoon short hike through the Mirabeau Meadows Park where low-lying exposed basement rocks, scoured by the megafloods, are surrounded by a terrace of valley flood fill.
Beginning around 6 pm at the CenterPlace Event Center auditorium, emeritus professor of Geology at EWU and IAFI Cheney-Spokane Chapter President, Dr. Linda McCollum, will give a short presentation and description of the goals of the two day Jamboree event. This will be followed by a talk by Dr. Dean Kiefer, Professor Emeritus, EWU, on J Harlen Bretz and the Spokane scientific community during the 1920s.
Friday, June 7
9 am – Meet at the Ice Age Floods playground in Riverfront Park where Linda and Mike McCollum will lead a modest hike through the Spokane Falls area. They will discuss the geology, flood history, and the importance of this area from the founding of the present city, including a major railway hub, the transition to the Expo 74 on its golden anniversary, and finally to the Riverfront Park of today. The hike will end at the historic 1902 Looff Carrousel, where participants can enjoy shopping and food in the downtown core.
1 pm – We’ll meet at the Spokane Conservation District parking lot, located within an historic bedrock quarry where Michael Hamilton will lead a short hike through the quarry site, explaining the importance of the bedrock geology in relation to the Ice Age Floods. Afterward you may eat at the Spokane Valley Farmer’s Market at the CenterPlace parking lot, where food trucks and a beer garden are available.
6 pm – We’ll gather for an IAFI membership meeting at the CenterPlace Auditorium where Gary Ford, president of the national IAFI, will conduct a short membership meeting and introduce Justin Radford, National Park Service Program Manager, who will speak about the Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail. Linda McCollum will then introduce Jack Nesbit, renowned author, who will talk about the discovery of Columbian mammoth remains near Latah, Washington.
Saturday, June 8
Saturday is dedicated to field trips from 9:00-5:00. Participants will have a choice of a very popular bus trip led by Michael Hamilton, at a cost of $55, or a car caravan field trip led by the McCollums. The goal of these trips is to show evidence of substantial Spokane Valley expansion by glacial Lake Missoula megaflood erosion. We will also discuss the origin of the prominent terraces which flank Spokane Valley which have been classically regarded as either river bars or floodplain terraces.
9 am Michael Hamilton Bus Trip – Load up at the CenterPlace parking lot. We will proceed westward along I-90, viewing typical scabland topography, on the way to Palisades Park for a spectacular view from the top of the Columbia Plateau eastward down the Spokane Valley. We will show evidence that the megafloods erosionally widened Spokane Valley, dramatically slamming into the basalt rimrock here, then rose even higher, removing Palouse sediment topping the Columbia River Basalt Plateau, and then breaching the southern shoreline of glacial Lake Columbia to cut the Cheney-Palouse Scabland Tract to the southwest.
We will then travel down a terraced escarpment past Spokane Falls Community College, cross the Spokane River and head north to the Bowl and Pitcher in Riverside Park, for a discussion of meander incision and mass wasting. We will continue along the river on the 1900 foot terrace for a lovely view of other prominent bedrock benches and gravel terraces within Riverside State Park from the Fairmont Memorial Park overlook. From there we continue eastward to Drumheller Springs Historical Park, a 12 acre scabland-like exposure of basalt surrounded by flood gravels, and on to Northtown Mall for lunch at the food court.
After lunch we will regroup and visit the Arbor Crest Winery viewpoint where we will see more evidence for flood widening of the Spokane Valley. We will then head down to river level at the Coyote Rock Centennial Trailhead parking lot to view gigantic rimrock boulders excavated out of the megaflood gravel fill by the present-day Spokane River. We will continue upriver to the Plante’s Ferry parking lot, still within the megaflood gravels, to look at more huge rimrock basalt boulders. It is only a short distance back to the CenterPlace Event parking lot to end the trip.
9 am McCollum car caravan field trip will meet at at the CenterPlace parking lot where we will need to carpool (20 cars max) because of the limited parking places available along the field trip route. The first destination is the Sandifer Bridge Parking lot off Riverside Drive. We will visit some of the same field trip stops as the bus trip, but we will be going to a few more remote megaflood features that require moderate hikes, such as the confluence of Latah Creek with the Spokane River. We’ll stop at the food court at the Spokane Valley Mall for lunch and continue along the north side of Spokane Valley with a moderate hike near Plante’s Ferry park, and, if time permits, visit the Arbor Crest winery, then return to CenterPlace.
5:30 pm Barbecue at Mirabeau Meadows – for all the participants. Linda McCollum will introduce Lloyd DeKay, president of the IAFI Columbia Gorge Chapter, who will give a preview of next year’s annual meeting.
LOGISTICS
Our meeting place is centrally located in Spokane Valley and there are numerous options for lodging and meals to choose from. I generally start off with Google Maps, starting near the CenterPlace at Mirabeau and going out from there. Also, VisitSpokane.com is a web resource that may be helpful in finding what you need. RV Campsites include the KOA Campground on Barker Road, and Liberty Lake Regional Park may also be a good option. The only meal we will provide is the Saturday night barbecue.