Devil's Canyon

Devil's canyon is a geological feature caused by the Missoula Floods around 10,000 years ago.

To better understand these images, take a look at the satellite image below:

This is a snapshot of most of the Columbia Basin in Eastern Washington.  Most of the brown areas in the above image are where soil was scoured away in the floods.  You should really look up more details on the Missoula Floods because it really is an amazing story, but in a nutshell:

During the last ice age, an arm of the ice sheet blocked the outflow of the Clark Fork River into the eastern end of what is now Lake Pend Orielle.  This ice dam occurred about once ever 50 years, at least 42 times.  So for 50 years, water would back up behind this dam in what is now known as glacial lake Missoula (1000 ft deep where Missoula now is).  When the water got deep enough, it lifted the ice dame and rushed out in an estimated 4 to 10 days, scouring Eastern Washington, creating temporary lakes there, in Eastern Oregon, and the Willamette Valley for weeks afterward, and greatly altering the landscape of Eastern Washington.

The square in the above image is blown up to show more detail of the small detail I'm referring to.

Large swaths of the Palouse soil were swept away, and in some places many layers of basalt from much older lava flows were torn up in stretches.  These U- and V-shaped valleys are called "coulees" and are sometimes hundreds of feet deep.  They are quite impressive to stand in.  Some good examples are Banks Lake, Rock Lake, and the Grand Coulee, which is now a reservoir created by the Grand Coulee Dam.  Devil's Canyon is interesting because it begins at the Elbow of Washtucna Coulee.  I'm not an expert geologist, but the summary seems to be that water flowing down Washtucna Coulee to the SW from Washtucna met backwater created by the Walulla Gap flowing east from what is now Connell and overtopped the south edge of the coulee and begat Devil's Canyon, which is a relatively small feature in all of the Eastern Washington scablands.

It's interesting because it's a deep trench that starts near the top of a hill and has no creek flowing in it.  And standing in it is like standing in a sewer with no top and no flow.  You know a huge flow caused it, and the thought of a flow happening make standing there somewhat unnerving.  I supposed that's why it's called Devil's Canyon.  There is a railroad and a road in the canyon, the railroad long since abandoned, and now it's part of the Columbia Plateau Trail, which, when completed, will be a rails-to-trails bike trail all the way from Spokane to the Tri-Cities.  And the original RR tunneled through the basalt layers, about a half mile long, at the top.

Above is a picture of the particulars near the top.  The top arrow is the beginning of the train tunnel, and it's only about 200 yards from magnificent downtown Kahlotus.  The bottom arrow is the other end of the tunnel at the top of Devil's Canyon.  Some of the pictures I took looking up and down the canyon were taken from the edge of a basalt cliff marked by the X.

One of the reasons this place is unusual is the approach to the RR tunnel, which is a trench dug out at the beginning of it.  Very confining.

About 50 yards from the tunnel I was met by a blast of air conditioner-cold air from a cold wind blowing up the canyon on the other side of the tunnel.  Also a bit unnerving.

It's only a half mile.  What could happen?  It's like staring down the barrel of a loaded gun.

Ok, fine, enough of this.  Let's get to the other side.  Since the RR tunnel stays mostly level, and the road climbs to this point, the tunnel is well below the plateau on the canyon side, but since the floods created a sort-of pointed head to the canyon by what I can only assume would be an awesome waterfall, that's where the tunnel comes out -- at the base of that imagined waterfall.

The rail bed from above the tunnel opening on the canyon side. The road is on the bluff above to the left.

You can begin to see the crazy V-shaped trench this trail lies in.

To get a better look, I hiked on the side of the canyon, about 100 feet up.  It's not as treacherous as the trial in Hell's Canyon (in spots), but it is narrow and side-hill.

And there are cliffs. The above pic is looking up canyon from the X.

Here you can see all the way down the canyon, at the end of which is Lower Monumental Dam on the Snake River.  The road is on the left and you can see that it meets the level of the RR about halfway dow the canyon.  From there the road stays in the bottom and the RR climbs the wall on the right, until it is about 200 ft above the river when it meets the Snake River Canyon.  From there the trail gets really interesting.  The railroad stayed very high because there is only 45 deg bank into the river below.  So the RR alternates on trestles and tunnels through the Snake River Breaks most of the way down to the Tri-Cities.  Funding has not yet been forthcoming to complete this part of the trail, so the trestles are clearly fenced off, but the section from Washtucna to Windust Park (3 miles below the Lower Monumental Dam) would make for an excellent trail marathon.

Upcoming posts:
Staircase Rapids, NE of Washtucna.
The Great Dry Falls (3 times the size of Niagara, with no water falling)