As a kid living in the very area described by the article, I climbed cliffs all over the place and generally grooved on the complex geology of the area. Turns out it’s a lot more complex than I realized at the time, and Archy describes why in Looking for drowned mammoths. (the glacial flood would have been really cool to watch… from a safe vantage point, which would not include the present location of Vantage, Washington where I did a lot of my climbing)
The landscape in the Gorge is simply stunning. The view down the Columbia from the bridge near Vantage is not to be missed – one can easily picture it being carved in the time of the flood. I drive the Spokane/Tacoma round trip about every 6 weeks, and I never cease to be amazed by it. If only I were a better photographer ….
Alas, I’ve never seen that part of my home state (born in Seattle). It might interest you to know that I use mammoth tusks in my work- lots of Baroque bows have frogs of ivory, and since mammoths are no longer endangered, I use mammoth ivory. Supposedly it can be distinguished from elephant ivory with a good microscope- some stacking angle of the grain lines is different. But it looks and works the same. This is not surprising, given that elephants and mammoths are considered close enough genetically to produce viable hybrid offspring (if you could get two similarly inclined specimens of these pachyderms together).