REACH 2020 MUSEUM tours OVERVIEW
Experience the unique history of the land that surrounds the Mid-Columbia River region through a variety of specially designed tours offered through The REACH Museum.
From exploratory hikes to tracing the paths of the Ice Age floods; from kayaking on the Columbia River to strolling through an aromatic lavender farm; or take a tour of a local hop farm, processing plant and microbrewery to imbibe in local draughts.
Cost of each tour includes transportation to and from the location and lunch.
Participants are requested to arrive at The REACH 15 minutes before the start time so that the tour can depart on time.
The provided lunch is a sandwich, small bag of chips, a cookie and a small bottled water. Participants with special dietary requirements are responsible for bringing their own.
The REACH prohibits open containers of alcohol during transportation.
CANCELLATION POLICY Any cancellation seven (7) days before the tour date will receive a full refund. The REACH will retain 25% of the ticket cost if a cancellation occurs less than seven (7) days before the tour date.
Tours are subject to cancellation if there are not enough registered participants to fulfill the minimum requirement.
Western Scablands
Friday April 10 9am-3pm $99.99 per person Tour guide: Gary Kleinknecht
HIGHLIGHTS Yakima Fold Belt Drumheller Channels West Bar Potholes Coulee Frenchman Coulee
Transportation/lunch provided
In the 1920s, J. Harlen Bretz was the first to coin the term scablands as a variety of channels and rock basins eroded into the native basalt rock of the region. He argued that massive flooding in the past caused the scablands and in the 1950s, his theories were finally vindicated.
"They could not More than 40 cataclysmic floods over the last two million years caused the channeled scablands of Eastern Washington. The last flood occurred be more between 18,000 and 14,000 years ago when a glacial dam failed and ancient Lake Missoula in erratically and Montana swept across Idaho, Washington and followed the Columbia River into the Pacific Ocean. impossibly This tremendous water flow was 10 times that of designed." all of the modern rivers of the world and several hundred feet deep. The huge surge of water filled and then moved across normal stream and river valleys. The existing drainage patterns were ineffectual, creating a 100-mile wide pattern of braided channels. Where the water flowed deep and fast, it tore away soil and underlying volcanic bedrock, leaving behind the coulees and scablands seen today.
Deposits of gravel, sand, and silt accumulating over millions of years, brought by flooding of tributaries of the Columbia River and ancient lakes including Lake Missoula formed the White Bluffs, no part of the Hanford Reach National Monument.
20 miles The Columbia River cut through the collected sediment to reveal 15 banded slackwater flood rhythmites, which tower to 900 feet at their north of highest point. Any visible gravel must have traveled on icebergs during the flooding at the Richland same time the rhythmites were forming.
In recent history, saturated soil from naturally unstable irrigation waters from the Central Columbia Basin Irrigation Project most likely caused the rate of natural erosion to accelerate.
Water slowly strains through the silt and sand until it comes to a layer, which the water cannot pass through, leading to extreme slope instability, pockets of water, and deep fissures.
White Bluffs Hike
Saturday, April 18 9am-3pm $99.99 per person Tour Guide: Bruce Bjornstad
Highlights Within the Hanford Reach National Monument Geology/Wildflowers Moderate hike, approximately 5 miles at 300 feet elevation gain.
Transportation/lunch provided Wallula Gap Hike
Saturday, May 2 9am-3pm $99.99 per person Tour Guide: Bruce Bjornstad
HIGHLIGHTS STRENUOUS HIKE NO BATHROOM Twin Sisters Rocks ~7 miles, ~800 ft. elevation gain
Transportation/lunch provided
When the waters from Lake Missoula swept across Eastern Washington; the channeled scablands led the water into Pasco Basin and escaped out of a single outlet before filling the Columbia Basin Gorge.
Since all of the floodwaters had to pass through such a narrow passage, a huge lake formed The Narrow behind Wallula Gap extending to a surface area of approximately 4,500 square miles and a depth of about 900 feet. Passage Although Lake Lewis was only a temporary lake, boulders of various sizes, visible today, highlight the power and size of the Ice Age floods. These iceberg-carried erratics, including granite and diorite, stand out compared to the dark basalt native to the region. Floodwaters from ancient Lake Missoula uncovered basalt underneath a mixture of sediment and created deep canyons, plunge pools and cataracts. The current was so powerful that some of these depressions are more than 200 feet deep. Remnants of Among the widest channels is the Cheney- Palouse Tract, spanning 20 miles wide and 600 Massive feet deep. The south valley wall of the ancestral Palouse River, which flowed through the now Erosional dry Washtucna Coulee and onto the Columbia River, was overtopped.
Energy As seen today, the current course of water is from the Snake River to the Palouse Falls. There is an upper fall with a drop around 20 feet, north-northwest of the main drop, 198 feet.
Southern Cheney- Palouse Scablands
Friday, May 15 8am-3pm $99.99 per person Tour Guide: Gary Kleinknecht
HIGHLIGHTS Old Maid Coulee Washtucna Coulee Stair Case Rapids Palouse Falls HU Coulee Devils Coulee
Transportation/lunch provided IAF & Lavender
Friday,June 5 9am-2pm $99.99 per person Tour Guide: Gary Kleinknecht
HIGHLIGHTS Wallula Gap Clastic Dikes Lavender Farm
Transportation/lunch provided
Clastic dikes are one of many visible elements of the Ice Age Floods (IAF). Formed by water, wind, and gravity, sediment is swept into a fissure, cutting across a different layer of sediment or rock type. This filled crack is identifiable by the usual vertical or near- vertical layer, the length being many times larger than the width. Land The diverse soil makeup of eastern Washington can also be attributed to the Ice Age Floods. Diversity There are more than 300 different crops grown in the state.
Lavender, France’s quintessential crop, has been thriving under the Grimaud family’s care on their farm in Lowden, Washington outside of Walla Walla. Nearly all of the planting, weeding, harvesting, drying, and processing is carried out by hand. The Hanford Reach is the longest free-flowing, non-tidal stretch of the Columbia River, located between Priest Rapids Dam and McNary Dam.
It flows through the Hanford Reach National The Monument, an area untouched by development or agriculture since 1943.U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife manages this involuntary Involuntary park, preserving it as a wildlife refuge with an abundance of flora and fauna exemplary of the Park shrub-steppe ecosystem.
Additionally, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is within the Monument. Nine reactors that produced plutonium, left over from World War II and the Cold War era dot along the shoreline, managed by the Department of Energy.
Kayak the Reach Ntl. Monument
Saturday, August 8 8am-3pm $99.99 per person Tour Guide: US Fish & Wildlife
HIGHLIGHTS Wildlife Cliffs B-Reactor
Transportation/lunch provided Hops & Beer of the Mid- Columbia
Saturday, September 5 9am-3pm $99.99 per person
HIGHLIGHTS Carpenter Ranches LLC YCH Hops Varietal Beer Co.
Transportation/lunch provided
Participants are responsible for beer tasting fees.
Washington’s Yakima Valley has the ideal climate and irrigation conditions for hops, making it one of the most productive hop- growing regions in the world.
In the United States, 75% of all hop farms are located in the Yakima Valley and they produce 77% of all United States hops. Many of these farms, like Carpenter Ranches LLC, are family owned and operated by third or fourth Ideal Climate generations.
Currently, there are approximately 404 breweries in Washington State, with 80% producing less than 1,000 barrels per year. Only 70 breweries in Washington State produce more than 1,000 barrels per year.
Varietal Brewing Company in Sunnyside has a 10 barrel (310 gallon) brewhouse for their production.