Palouse Falls Chapter Takes Lead in Car Caravan Tours
The Palouse Falls Chapter of the Ice Age Floods Institute hosted their annual Fall tour on Saturday Oct. 26th with a trip through the lower Telford-Crab Creek Scabland Tract and lower Grand Coulee. This was the 5th tour since their formation in 2015. The previous tours were by bus, but due to Covid-19, it was decided to hold this tour by car caravan. It was the second car caravan tour for the chapter.
Seventeen people checked in at the Ritzville City Park for introductions and instructions. Current protocols for Covid-19 were presented with masks available for anyone who did not have one. Everyone came prepared as all were aware of what needs to be done in this time of pandemic. Not only was there local participation, but guests from as far as Seattle, Lewiston, ID, and Bozeman, MT came to learn more about our incredible flood story. With the restrictions of Covid-19, this trip provided a way for participants to see new areas of the channeled scablands in a safe way during these trying times.
Everyone received a guidebook at the start of the trip to explain the stops with detailed directions in case they got separated from the group. The first stop was a coulee at the Marcellus elevator north of Ritzville on the eastern edge of the Telford/Crab Creek Scabland Tract. The caravan then continued to a stop at Crab Creek on Rocky Ford Road. The next stop was north of Odessa to hike around three of the Odessa Craters. The trip continued across the back roads through the Telford/Crab Creek Scablands to Dry Falls in the Grand Coulee for lunch. The next two stops in the lower Grand Coulee were to look at the Coulee Monocline, followed by another hike at the Lenore Caves above Lake Lenore. Continuing south, the caravan arrived on the Ephrata Fan south of Soap Lake. The final stop was above Moses Lake which occupies the last channel of the diverted Columbia River from the time of the floods.
Despite the tour covering a large area with multiple stops, all ten cars that started the trip finished with no one getting lost along the way. Based on their experience with running car caravan tours the leaders of this tour offered a number of “CAR CARAVAN GUIDELINES” that other chapters will find useful for organizing their own car caravan tours, at least until we can safely do bus tours again.