The Drumheller Channels north of Othello are among the most spectacular of Washington’s natural wonders. But they’re also among the least visited.

Splayed on regional maps, the channeled scablands resemble an enormous jellyfish. At least that’s how it looks to me, with present-day Spokane and points west at its head and the tentacles of the flood-scoured pathways generally drifting to the southwest.

“Like roads to Rome,” J Harlen Bretz wrote in 1959, “all scabland rivers led to the Pasco Basin.”

Still, some took a more circuitous route than others.

The Telford tract floodwaters that carved Lake Creek Coulee in central Lincoln County (see entry #1) were headed toward Pasco until they reached the Crab Creek valley near present-day Odessa. Confronted by highlands to the south, the riot of rocks, water and ice made a sharp right turn and followed the Crab Creek drainage to the west. It was only when the rampaging floods reached the Quincy Basin—north of present-day Moses Lake—that the swirling chaos turned southward.

To reach Pasco the floods had to pass through a bottleneck at present-day Othello. The larger, northern portion of that bottleneck is known as the Drumheller Channels.

When Bretz and his small entourage of geology students charted the Drumheller a century ago, the phalanx of basalt buttes and maze of deep, interconnecting flood pathways were awe-inspiring.

“Drumheller is the most spectacular tract of butte-and-basin scabland on the [Columbia] plateau,” he wrote. “It is an almost unbelievable labyrinth of anastamosing channels, rock basins, and small abandoned cataracts.”

The Drumheller was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1986. But it still may be the one must-see natural wonder in the state that most Washingtonians have never visited, let alone even heard about.

Apart from its place in Bretz lore, the Drumheller’s main attraction for me, as a photographer, are the flood-carved buttes on either side of Crab Creek where hundreds of towering basalt crystals form breathtaking palisades. It’s telling that when National Geographic featured the scablands in a 2017 spread, Formed by Megafloods, This Place Fooled Scientists for Decades, the centerpiece photo for the article framed one of these buttes against a backdrop of storm clouds.

From the tops of the palisades you can readily see for miles in the direction from which the floods arrived, and imagine what that must have looked and sounded like.

I learned about the Drumheller palisades several years ago while watching a short internet video featuring Central Washington University’s talented geology professor, Nick Zentner. In the midst of his on-site lecture, Nick set his rock hammer down, only to have it bounce into one of the hexagonal cracks that separate the basalt columns. This might not have mattered except Zentner was sitting on top of the columns, and the hammer fell roughly 50 feet down the crack, lost for good. Laughter ensued.

Part of what got my attention is that the tops of the long, slender columns are exposed and, from above, appear as enormous tiles—so large you can easily distinguish them in Google Earth photos taken from far above. Some of the columns are free-standing, separated from the main faces of the buttes by several feet.

The basalt in these photogenic palisades was delivered in one of the younger lava flows (approximately 10.5 million years ago) that, collectively, make up the Columbia River Basalt Group. It is known as the Elephant Mountain member of the Saddle Mountain Formation, and it flowed westward from vents near present-day Lewiston, Idaho.

While older basalt flows also form handsome palisades in the Drumheller, the exposed Elephant Mountain fronts are, in a word, stunning. Of course, the reason they’re exposed is that ice age floodwaters were funneled into the area at high velocity and depth, and what we see is the result of the soils and much of the surrounding rock being ripped open and swept away. From the tops of the Elephant Mountain palisades you can readily see for miles in the direction from which the floods arrived, and imagine what that must have looked and sounded like.

When I first approached the dramatic butte where Nick Zentner lost his rock hammer, I’d been hiking through the channels with my old friend Larry Shook for over an hour. Aside from our own voices, the only other sound we heard came from a flock of Sandhill cranes soaring above us.

The cranes speak to the main attraction of the area, which are the migratory cranes and the dozens of other species of birds and terrestrial animals, including a healthy and loud population of frogs in Crab Creek. It’s also home to my favorite summer wildflower, the Green-banded Mariposa Lilly which is uncommon but, in the Drumheller, can appear in abundance, it’s ornate, long-stemmed and ghostly lavender blossoms swaying in the warm breeze.

Although the main perimeter roads are open year around, be aware that from October until early spring much of the interior of the refuge is off limits to protect cranes and other migratory birds. To get up to date information on access you can call the refuge at (509) 488-3140. Hiking is best in early to mid-spring before cheatgrass spurs and rattlesnakes emerge along with the sometimes withering heat. I prefer the rattlesnakes to the cheatgrass, but that’s just me.

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How to Get There

From Seattle or Spokane you’ll first want to find U.S. Highway 17, which is accessible off Interstate-90 at Moses Lake. If you’re coming from the south, on U.S. 395, you can pick up 17 near the town of Mesa. On 17, ten miles south of Moses Lake, turn west on state route 262. Before long, you’ll pass the Warden Lake RV resort on your left and begin to notice the jaw-dropping terrain that Bretz noticed a century ago.

As you approach O’Sullivan Dam from the east you’ll come to a sign directing you to the headquarters of the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge. The federally-managed refuge encompasses most of the Drumheller, or at least that part of the Drumheller that has not been submerged beneath Potholes Reservoir since 1949. My advice is to ignore the sign to the refuge and stay on route 262. Keep going westward across O’Sullivan Dam, continuing along the elevated roadway between the Drumheller on your left and the massive Potholes Reservoir on your right.

A couple miles past the dam you’ll come to H Road SE, on your left. Turn there and follow the road up the long grade on what is basically the eastern nose of the Frenchman Hills. Continue until you reach a stop sign where H Road SE comes to a “T” at 12 Road SE and McManamon Road. Turn left on McManamon. After about a mile or so you’ll see a visitors’ turnout on your left which affords the best publicly accessible overview of the Drumheller. The elevation gain gives you a superb overview of the entire Drumheller area, and it’s worth stopping at the overlook to check it out and get your bearings. From there, McManamon swings south and east, passing over Crab Creek on the way to Morgan Lake Road and the headquarters of the wildlife refuge near Othello.

Next: Northrup Canyon