Palouse River
We spent our morning exploring the mouth of the Palouse River by Zodiac and kayak. The clouds disappeared and the sky turned a crisp blue. With the wind at our backs we paddled up the river into a steep sided canyon. Two red-tailed hawks flew low overhead and we heard their distinctive calls. The Zodiacs meandered through cat-tail lined channels stopping the engines and listening for birds. They spotted a small flock of white crowned sparrows feeding amongst the sagebrush and found two canyon wrens by their watery calls. Further along, there were thousands of abandoned cliff swallow nests lining the basalt cliffs. The highlight was when a mule deer peered out from the brush seemingly to watch the watchers.
Alternating with travel on the river, we boarded a yellow school bus and followed a bumpy road to Palouse Falls State Park. Here we could look down on the river from the tops of the same cliffs we saw earlier stretching out above us. From this point we beheld a two hundred foot waterfall plunging into a deep circular bowl. The Palouse River has carved a magnificent gorge and it was our pleasure to be able to view it from both these perspectives.
It was warm and sunny, so the galley crew served up a barbeque lunch out on deck! We spent a relaxing afternoon traveling down the Snake River with the tranquility punctuated only by the lock at Lower Monument Dam and Jerry Igo’s Lewis and Clark presentation “Thirty-three People and a Big Black Dog.” At sunset we went through Ice Harbor Dam, which was our last lock on the Snake River.
We spent our morning exploring the mouth of the Palouse River by Zodiac and kayak. The clouds disappeared and the sky turned a crisp blue. With the wind at our backs we paddled up the river into a steep sided canyon. Two red-tailed hawks flew low overhead and we heard their distinctive calls. The Zodiacs meandered through cat-tail lined channels stopping the engines and listening for birds. They spotted a small flock of white crowned sparrows feeding amongst the sagebrush and found two canyon wrens by their watery calls. Further along, there were thousands of abandoned cliff swallow nests lining the basalt cliffs. The highlight was when a mule deer peered out from the brush seemingly to watch the watchers.
Alternating with travel on the river, we boarded a yellow school bus and followed a bumpy road to Palouse Falls State Park. Here we could look down on the river from the tops of the same cliffs we saw earlier stretching out above us. From this point we beheld a two hundred foot waterfall plunging into a deep circular bowl. The Palouse River has carved a magnificent gorge and it was our pleasure to be able to view it from both these perspectives.
It was warm and sunny, so the galley crew served up a barbeque lunch out on deck! We spent a relaxing afternoon traveling down the Snake River with the tranquility punctuated only by the lock at Lower Monument Dam and Jerry Igo’s Lewis and Clark presentation “Thirty-three People and a Big Black Dog.” At sunset we went through Ice Harbor Dam, which was our last lock on the Snake River.
