Glacial Lake Missoula and the Cataclysmic Floods

Friday (Aug 31)

The wind is strong and relentless here. On my morning walk (yes I took one today!) I saw an info sign excerpting a Lewis and Clark journal from when they stopped here. It was very windy that day too! :)  Turns out this campground and Recreation Area are named after Private Lepage of their expedition. Apparently everyone in the expedition got something named after them over the course of their long journey … which I think is really cool.

Whatever you call that weed with big nasty burrs, there is a fuck of a lot of it out here. I first noticed this morning because there were about 15 burrs on my little door mat. Apparently they keep rolling across the gravel and grass and pavement, but the material of my doormat snags them. Just walking to the other side of the van I got a huge mat of them on the bottom of my flip flop. They are nasty little fuckers. I needed my work gloves to pick them off. A day later I still feel tiny, itchy little splinters in my fingers.

All in all, the walk was quite interesting. The sheriff and his inflatable boat were there to make sure boaters stayed safe and sane on the holiday. Fishermen were drying their nets. What do they fish for? I don’t know. Most importantly, I discovered that the picnic area bathroom is a huge upgrade on the campground bathroom! Not only plumbing, but showers! Very handy for next time

Between Hood River and The Dalles, the vegetation changes from forest to brown hills. I miss the trees of course, but out here it’s possibly even more spectacular because your view across to the brown hills of Washington is unobstructed.

I got my morning coffee in Umatilla at the Java Junkie, reminiscent of Java Jungle in more ways than the name. From the signs in the window I got the impression it was run by a women’s shelter, all the workers were women, but whatever, they were nice and the wifi was good and it did the trick for me.

As long as I was off the interstate, I stayed off and took the long way into Washington, on the two lane road that follows the Columbia were it bends north. A happy side effect was that I drove right over where the Snake River joins the Columbia. Lewis and Clark had ridden the Snake out of the Idaho mountains, so this is where they joined the mighty Columbia.

Back on I-84 then back off again to get gas in the town of Connell. The locals seemed to already getting in that Friday night spirit, folks yelling at each other out of their trucks – in a friendly way! It was kind of cool.

Allstays says there is BLM camping at a place called Fishtrap about 40 miles north, so that is were I am headed. There was a helpful sign on the interstate saying “Camping”, but once you got off at the exit, no more helpful signs. I had a hard time finding the place, and am not sure I ever did find it!

So like I say, just a parking lot. But a very quiet and pleasant one.

Saturday

The Hog Lake Trail is posted as a mere 1.3 mile loop. I was too tired to even care last night, but this morning I thought what the heck, let’s see what’s out there. The short answer is that not much is out there. Hog Lake itself is kind of impressive, it’s only a couple of miles long, but it’s in a deep cleft in the lava, at the bottom of a cheer cliff of 200′(?) or so. The trail thankfully stayed on top of the cliff. The road I came in on does continue to the lake edge, and the trail joined it for the return loop. There were a couple of pull-offs, and what looked like a parking area at the edge of the lake, so maybe one or all of those were the official camping area. Who knows. My choice worked fine for me.

Some people started showing up in late morning in their jogging outfits. It is Labor Day Saturday after all. I think they were WWSU students.

There was a likely looking coffee shop on the way to Spokane, in the unfortunately named town of Cheney. The map tells me that WWSU, Western Washington State University, is there. That seals it: a coffee shop in a college town, I’m there! It was called The Mason Jar (for some reason…) and it was quite pleasant, complete with nerds in the corner with their headphones and laptops, just what I was looking for!

A few months ago I watched a bad movie on cable one night – The River Murders – mentioned now because it took place in Spokane. The town and especially the river and the dramatic falls downtown looked so cool in the movie. Checking out Spokane was part of my decision to depart from the Lewis & Clark route to come up here. So I aimed for downtown … which also happens to be the grounds of the 1974 World’s Fair. Why was there a World’s Fair in Spokane? Your guess is as good as mine, but there’s documentation … it happened!

I did my thing where I took the back roads into Spokane from Cheney even though there is a perfectly good interstate going my way. This was a mistake. I wanted to explore Spokane and especially the Worlds Fair Expo grounds, but events defeated me. There is a massive Labor Day BBQ there today. It’s very crowded, parking is impossible, lots of stupid traffic. I crossed the Spokane River on the quaint little Post Street Bridge. Peeking sideways as I drove the river it did look pretty spectacular – waterfalls and rapids. I definitely wanted to park and walk it, but wasn’t going to be easy today.

Looking back, there is a lesson here for me. If I had just taken the freeway to downtown and headed straight for the Expo park, maybe I would have had the energy to find parking and check out the event and the river. Stumbling across festivals and such is after all kinda the point pf all this traveling. Instead I was so worn out by the stupid faceless suburbs and the stupid downtown one-ways clogged with cars that I just wanted out.

On the way out of town I notice that I am on good ole US 395! 395 is probably my favorite US highway :). It is the main north-south artery of Reno. From there it takes me south to the Eastern Sierras and north to Susanville and Alturas. I’ve also camped right next to it in San Diego, where it follows the I-15 corridor down to Mexico. That would be a pretty cool trip to follow 395 from Mexico to Canada.

Anyway, northward into the great unknown.

What a really nice spot! Where the Priest River meets the Pend Oreille River (“pen-do-ray” in American, or to frenchify it: “pahwn-d-ray”) It seems like a perfect family recreation spot, so I am amazed that I could drive right in on Saturday evening of Labor Day Weekend and have a choice of (two) spots. I guess I suffered enough in the Oregon Coast, so the universe is cutting me a little slack this weekend. I like that idea.

Being an Army Corp campground, they did have to make check-in a little more complicated than it needed to be, but not too much so.

Sunday

This seems like a perfect family vacation spot, in particular the swimming beach tucked into a still water cove on the river. Really very nice. In addition to all its other cool features, checkout time is 2 pm!

Coffee at Monarch Mountain – the Sandpoint equivalent of my beloved Java Jungle – that is to say, funky decor and studious teenagers in the corner. Using their internet, I identified a campground not too far away. FInding a cool place to end up that night always makes the prospect of the day better! Since I have only an hour or so to drive I stayed a long time.

I’ve been looking forward to the next town – Clark Fork – for days! This is Ground Zero for Glacial Lake Missoula and the Cataclysmic Floods.  The stretch of country I’ve travelled for the last six days, since Portland, was shaped by cataclysmic Ice Age floods. During the Ice Age, the Clark Fork canyon would freeze solid to a depth of hundreds of feet of ice. Clark Fork is a north-flowing river, so all that water coming from the warmer south got backed up right here, causing much of western Montana (3,000 sq miles) to flood, creating Glacial Lake Missoula hundreds of feet deep, lasting hundreds or thousands of years, … until … The temperature started warming. Then the ice plug would give, emptying the lake and sending a 500′ wall of water all the way to the ocean.

I think this is the coolest, most amazing thing, and I detoured off my Lewis and Clark fixation for a few days to indulge my cataclysmic flood fixation. Following the river south of Clark Fork, the valley is pretty narrow and the hills on either side pretty high, but there is nothing about it that suggest it being the home of all this intense geological drama.

Somewhere between Sandpoint and Clark Fork I left summer resort civilization and entered the backwoods. Sandpoint was SUVs and Safeways. Clark Fork is old pickups and a general store at the gas station. There was a modern looking bar advertising burgers. I decided this is as good as it’s going to get for me today, went in and ordered a mushroom cheeseburger and a beer. The beer menu was from the 50s’, but they did have Molson Canadian. I had one of those … two actually, since the bartender got me the first one (long story …). Brought back memories … Hit the spot real well tonight.

Another really nice campground. all the sites are big enough for a pickup truck AND a boat trailer. The boat launch and associated picnic area and little beach are about 200 yards down the hill.

Monday

I entered the Mountain Time Zone in the twenty miles between dinner and here, so this morning came an hour too early for me. I am sleeping in a bit.

Hard to leave this ideal little spot, particularly since my camping app presents no good alternatives for tonight, but around 12:45 (what my body thinks is 11:45) I do muster myself into the driver’s seat and move on.

I found a very, very pleasant interlude at a little drive-thru coffee place called Beagle’s Bakery & Espresso that also has a small cafe. They had just baked (still warm!) banana muffins, and the peanut butter cookie looked to good to pass up, so I had an americano and some goodies … great way to start the day!

The drive is just spectacular today! I want to remind myself here so I don’t forget it. My first 30 miles are southeast down the Clark Fork valley, a scaled-up version of the valley at Clark Fork. A wide, flat valley floor, with steeply sloping evenly angled tree-covered mountains on both sides. Almost like it had been sculpted out by a few thousand years of glaciers.

The only town of note is Thompson Falls. It had the very distinctive layout which I have seen in railroad towns all over the west. The main feature is the railroad tracks, to my left going south. The far side was undeveloped, just forest. Then was a gently sloping 30 yards of grass, then the highway, then a row of storefronts on the right side of the road running five blocks. I imagine there was a lot of action on that grassy stretch back in the day when this was a thriving lumber town. Now it’s just grass.

I have been driving with water, various lakes and rivers,  to my left for a day and a half. First it was the Pend Oreille River, which became Lake Pend Oreille, which became Clark Fork which was Noxon Lake for awhile… This is one of the rare rivers that flows northward … part of the whole Lake Missoula thing I have been obsessing on. Driving south just feels like it should be driving downstream, but in fact I’m driving upstream.