Did you know most of the Tri-Cities area was under hundreds of feet of water about 13,000 years ago? Badger Mountain was a small island in a giant, turbulent lake called Lake Lewis. That is the theory first hatched by Harlan Bretz in the 1920’s. This idea was initially dismissed as hairbrained but later gained credibility and is now widely accepted by modern day geologists as an accurate idea of how our area’s landscape was shaped.
One of our area’s foremost experts on the ice age floods and how they shaped our topography into what is known as the “Channeled Scablands” is Bruce Bjornstad.
Bjornstad is a geologist with Battelle and has written books on the subject. I am currently reading his book On The Trail of the Ice Age Floods: A Geological Field Guide to the Mid-Columbia Basin. I think you’ll find the book fascinating but I’ll have a full review up on the website soon.
While this book covers areas in close proximity to the Tri-Cities, Bjornstad collaborated with geologist Eugene Kiver on a new book just out exploring areas to the north: On The Trail of the Ice Age Floods: The Northern Reaches. We’ll likely have a video interview with Bjornstad on hiketricities.com as well! Check out the more in-depth page on the Channeled Scablands and other resources on this hiketricities.com page.