PERSONAL DISCOVERY OF CATACLYSMIC, ICE AGE FLOODS THROUGH GEOCACHING

The exciting game of geocaching provides a new and enjoyable way to discover our surroundings, including unique landforms left behind by repeated Ice Age floods. Giant floods from Pleistocene Glacial Lake Missoula dramatically changed the landscape along a 600-mile long swath through portions of Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. The general public has been largely unaware of these cataclysmic geologic events even though J Harlen Bretz first unraveled evidence for the floods in 1923. This lack of awareness is rapidly changing and in the last decade the floods' story and the personal drama behind their discovery have increasingly captured the public's interest and imagination. Legislation is now before the U.S. Congress to establish a first-of-its-kind Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail. The proposed trail, under management of the National Park Service, would utilize existing public roadways and facilities to reveal the evidence for the floods along their many pathways, from Missoula to the mouth of the Columbia River.

As one way to generate and expand public interest in the floods, a set of 10 geocaches located at particularly striking flood features were established on public lands within southeastern Washington. Included are a wide variety of erosional as well as depositional features that are both scenic and instructive. Detailed information on these geocache sites, revolving around the theme of the floods, is available online at www.iceagefloodsinstitute.org/geocaching.html. Together, the geocaches present the dramatic scientific evidence for the floods that allows the adventurous to experience flood features in their wild and pristine state, much the way Bretz did early in the 20th Century. One of these special floods geocaches (Saddle Mountains Overlook) is Washington State's first Earthcache, located on the new Hanford Reach National Monument. Armed with a GPS unit, any adventurous individual can now experience and appreciate, firsthand, the incredible power and magnitude of these cataclysmic events that played such an important role in shaping the majestic Pacific Northwest.