glacial lake outburst floods of
- Lacamas Creek Loop Hike (OregonHikers.org)
A forest oasis in a rapidly developing suburban setting, Lacamas Regional Park offers a fascinating sampling of landforms and habitats. At the end of the last Ice Age, over 12,000 years ago, a series of massive floods (the Missoula or Bretz Floods) swept down the Columbia River and scoured the landscape, creating exposed rock scablands and shallow depressions. This small park boasts no fewer than three waterfalls, including the pockmarked bench at the Potholes, a couple of lakes, scablands supporting oaks and camas lilies, and a deep forest dominated by maple and Douglas-fir. This loop begins on 3rd Avenue, but you can also start at Round Lake and include the Round Lake Loop Hike in the excursion. The itinerary includes a diversion to seasonal Woodburn Falls, which becomes dry during the summer but which is also best avoided when trails are extremely muddy.
- Lacamas Lake (OregonHikers.org)
Lacamas Lake, along with its neighbor, Round Lake, fills a depression carved by the ice age Bretz (Missoula) Floods at the end of the last ice age. Even though the lake is 180 feet above the Columbia River channel down which the floods roared, the roiling spate was deeper than that and cut across the landscape here to create a new channel. In the 1880s, two dams were built at Round Lake, which also raised the water level in Lacamas Lake. A few years later, a ditch was dug, using Chinese workers, to channel water from the lake to the Camas paper mill. In the decades that followed, further improvements were made to this system which fed the water needs of the paper mill.
- Round Lake Loop Hike (OregonHikers.org)
Round Lake, like its larger neighbor Lacamas Lake, is a child of the Missoula Floods, a depression carved when ice dams collapsed somewhere in northern Montana over 12,000 years ago and swept down through the Columbia River valley. The floods were not a single event but occurred at least 40 times over a period of 2,000 years. A “Missoula boulder,” perhaps rafted down the cataclysmic spate on a floe of ice, sits at the south end of Round Lake…
- Lacamas Lake (wa100.dnr.wa.gov)
Lakes, streams, and waterfalls greet visitors at Lacamas Park, sparkling amidst flower-filled camas lily meadows that draw photographers every April. Lacamas Lake sits on the eastern edge of the Portland basin, just a 20-minute drive from downtown Vancouver, WA. It is part of a regional county park that includes other smaller lakes such as Round Lake and Fallen Leaf Lake. Take a leisurely stroll along Lacamas Creek or the Heritage Trail to catch views across the lake while you stretch your legs. Examine curious geologic features such as potholes at Pothole Falls and Lower Falls. Wildlife is abundant here too—you may be able to catch a glimpse of deer, ospreys, bald eagles, or beavers, just to name a few. Bass, bluegill, and perch make Round Lake a great fishing spot. Bring the whole family and have a picnic or cookout in one of the park’s many picnic tables or shelters.
- Missoula floods (Wikipedia)
The Missoula floods (also known as the Spokane floods, the Bretz floods, or Bretz’s floods) were a series of cataclysmic glacial lake outburst floods that swept periodically across the area that would become eastern Washington, northern Idaho and northern Oregon, and down the Columbia River Gorge at the end of the last ice age. These floods were the result of periodic sudden ruptures of the ice dam on the Clark Fork River that created Glacial Lake Missoula. After each ice dam rupture, the waters of the lake would rush down the Clark Fork and the Columbia River, flooding much of eastern Washington and the Willamette Valley in western Oregon. After the lake drained, the ice would reform, creating glacial Lake Missoula again.