Faith | Eastern Washington geological sights reveal God’s handiwork

Recently my grandson and I, along with my sister and her husband went on a one-day excursion up north to visit the sights.

We started out at Wanapum Dam walking through the giant dam turbine outside by the Visitors Center. We then went inside and saw many fascinating displays.

There was information on the Columbia River Basalt lava flows that created piles of basalt up to thousands of feet thick. Later, the great Ice Age. Floods swept through the area carving out the landscape and leaving many large boulders.

During the last Ice Age, part of a glacier blocked the Clark Fork River, forming a lake near Missoula, Montana. With the collapse of this dam (which happened many times), it was the largest flood probably since the biblical Ark flood. It carved the coulees in eastern Washington, known as the Channeled Scablands.

We traveled further north above Vantage to the Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park and Visitors Center (museum) just above the Columbia River. The geologic history here dates back to the Columbia River Basalt Eruptions. Ginkgo Trees are considered a species that existed at the time of Dinosaurs.

There on the side of the cliff we saw rock carvings made by chipping directly on the rock surface using a stone chisel or a hammer stone. The petroglyphs there are Native American picture writings that were moved from their original site, which is now covered by water from the Wanapum Reservoir. We saw about 60 relocated petroglyphs.

We then went a couple miles west of the museum to the Trees of Stone Interpretive Trail with 21 petrified specimens along a trail. We saw the numerous petrified tree stumps on the dry ground. We had a fun time imagining that a forest once existed in this desert-type region a long time ago.

Next, we headed to Frenchman Coulee on the east side of the Columbia River which is a great hiking area featuring waterfalls and basalt columns (up to 75 feet high) for rock climbing. It’s said to be formed when Ice Age floodwaters flowed down the Grand Coulee and across the Quincy Basin. It is a wide flat bottom canyon (with 300-foot cliffs of basalt) that opens onto the Columbia River (not far from the Gorge Amphitheater).

This mega flood also formed Dry Falls about 20 miles north of Soap Lake, which is major evidence of the Missoula Floods. It is a cliff three and a half miles wide and 400 feet high in places. It’s hard to imagine a waterfall much higher and bigger than Niagara Falls. Palouse Falls was also likely created by the Missoula Floods, and is a beautiful waterfall about 70 miles northeast of Pasco.

It’s amazing to me how God created this beautiful and awesome Earth and world with such a delicate, yet enduring balance of nature to it, both living and geological. I know, as incredible as it is, that God’s heavenly kingdom will even be much greater for our enjoyment forever.

One needs a personal relationship with him through his son, Jesus Christ, who was unjustly and brutally crucified on a Roman cross on our behalf as the perfect sinless sacrifice, forgiving us of all our sins to make us perfectly righteous. By trusting in him as our Savior and Lord we can count on everlasting happiness beyond our wildest dreams in his heavenly kingdom forever.

May God’s handiwork on earth be an inspiration to know the Creator.

Lee Walter is Sunday School superintendent at Columbia Bible Church in Kennewick. Questions and comments should be directed to editor Lucy Luginbill in care of the Tri-City Herald newsroom, 4253 W. 24th Avenue, Kennewick, WA 99338. Or email lluginbill@tricityherald.com.