Visit Dry Falls State Park in Washington State: The "Niagara Falls" of the West

Imagine a waterfall 10 times the size of Niagara Falls, and you have an idea of what could have been in the state of Washington. When my wife and I were planning our 2008 trip to the northwest United States, we told friends that one of our stops would be the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington. Someone told us that as long as we were in that area, we needed to stop at Dry Falls.

We had never heard of Dry Falls, but there it was on the map, approximately 35 miles southwest of Grand Coulee Dam. In the Washington State Park system, Dry Falls is combined with Sun Lakes to make a 4,027-acre camping park. Whether you camp or just stop in for a few hours, Dry Falls is worth the few miles off the main highway.

Dry Falls is the product of Ice Age floods. A huge ice dam had formed in northwest Montana and created a lake estimated in size at 3000 square miles and named "Glacial Lake Missoula." When the lake grew large enough, it burst through the ice dam and moved through parts of Idaho, eastern Washington, and into Oregon.

During this flood, the tremendous force of the rushing water carved out the waterfall that, because of the lack of running water, has been named, appropriately, "Dry Falls." According to a website, "Go Northwest," Dry Falls is 400 feet high and 3.5 miles wide. By comparison, Niagara Falls is 165 feet high and one mile wide.

For years, the accepted cause of Dry Falls was a slow and steady erosion of the landscape by many small floods or by the erosive force of the Columbia River (which had a different course during the Ice Age) or other Ice Age rivers. The Missoula Flood Controversy and the Genesis Flood by Michael J. Oard (see reference details below) chronicles the debate over the cause of Dry Falls. Geologist J Harland Bretz examined the geological evidence in the area and declared that the cause of Dry Falls had to be a catastrophic flood that had created the falls in a matter of days rather than during the course of millions of years. Bretz estimated that the flood was 100 miles wide and hundreds of feet deep (Oard, page 9).

For forty years, Bretz maintained his theory of catastrophism in opposition to the currently fashionable theory of uniformitarianism. Uniformitarianism declares that all past geological processes can be determined by examining present geological processes. Behind much of the protest over Bretz and his theory was a fear that if Bretz's theory was accepted, it would lead to a return to respectability for the notion of a worldwide flood during the time of Noah (see Genesis 6-8). Many geologists came up with alternative theories (which were inadequate to explain the physical evidence). Others simply refused to examine the evidence and clung to their uniformitarianism. In the 1950s and 1960s, Bretz's theory was finally accepted by many geologist (Oard, page 14).

For me, looking at Dry Falls was to sense the incredible power of moving water. For me, it was a recognition of how small human beings really are in comparison with even the simple forces of nature. If you're in the area, be sure to stop and see this wonder of nature.

Sources:
Oard, Michael J., The Missoula Flood Controversy and the Genesis Flood (Chino Valley, AZ: Creation Research Society, 2004).
www.gonorthwest.com/washington/northeast/Dry_Falls.htm