I picked a glorious day to drive the Yakima Canyon route between Ellensburg and Selah. The first stop was to stretch the legs at a pull out above the river at the north end of the canyon. Some fellow travelers were taking in the road cut geology.
The brown unit on the right is a basalt flow mixed with lake sediments and water. The black rock is the cleaner upper part of the flow. The whitish unit is lake sediments deposited on the basalt and then on the left the sequence begins to repeat.
I chatted with the folks at the exposure, they are big fans of http://www.nickzentner.com/central-rocks. Nick does have a nice video on the Yakima Canyon.
Early spring leaf out along the river
Lines of talus. This feature is thought to be formed primarily by summer cloud-burst rain events (Kaatz, 2001). These types of events are not common, but Kaatz suggested that they are a primary geomorphic process in eastern Washington that had been perhaps under appreciated.
Soil covered talus and debris flow exposed in road cut.
Following the entrenched meander of the river
Yellow bloom of Balsamorhiza sagittata
Fold in the basalt - the river is cutting through the Yakima Fold Belt
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