The full moon rises, as seen from the Sun Lakes State Park just a mile south of Dry Falls in central Washington. Dry Falls is a 3 1/2 mile wide cliff just out of frame to the left of the top photo. It is believed to be the greatest known waterfall to have existed. According to geological models, at the end of the last ice age, catastrophic flooding sent huge amounts of water over the 400 foot high cliffs. It is theorized that the release of water originated from glaciers damming the Columbia River. The resulting ice dam was so big that most of western Montana was underwater. When the ice dam broke it sent water surging through centeral Washington. The volume of water is believed to have been ten times the current flow of all of the rivers in the world combined. This process was repeated dozens of times during the last ice age. As the glaciers receded the flow of the Columbia river (just 20 miles west of here) returned to normal and dry falls was left...dry.
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