Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Sprague Lake Rest Stop and Somewhere East of Here

Low posting due to travel, off the grid and intense work schedule. While on the road had a stop at the Interstate 90 rest stop south of Spokane with a view of Sprague Lake. The lake is within the main Palouse Scabland glacial flood tract.
 
Sprague Lake and the Palouse Scabland

The lake covers only a very small width of the Palouse floodway tract. All the scab land of small mesas of basalt were shaped by the rushing flood waters. The above picture has a few mounds covered with golden colored plants. This stretch of scabland is covered with mound topography (more on a later post).

View looking downstream to the south of Sprague Lake

Just to the north the scab land continues, but the ponderosa forest starts softening the landscape. The highway passes by a couple of fluted hills of loess silts that were not entirely washed away by the rushing flood waters.
Fluted loess hill near Medical Lake exit.

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