When geologist J. Harlen Bretz proposed the idea that the rugged canyons and buttes of Eastern Washington weren’t formed gradually, but carved out in days by a cataclysmic flood, his colleagues called him a quack. Everyone in 1923 knew that geology is measured in millennia, not days. Massive canyons and buttes simply could not be created overnight.

Bretz would spend over a decade being ridiculed for his “preposterous” idea, but he was right. The Channeled Scablands of Eastern Washington were indeed created by flood. Bretz had spent years conducting on-the-ground fieldwork, mapping out the region’s unique topography with remarkable precision. He saw what those who had never visited the area couldn’t—channels instead of valleys, dramatic erosive changes that were “nothing short of amazing.”

The only problem? He couldn’t figure out where that cataclysmic floodwater could’ve come from.

Explaining Washington’s most unexpected landscape

Most people associate Washington with evergreen forests, misty mountains, and rain, but only part of the state has those features. Much of Eastern Washington is exactly the opposite: arid, sunny high desert as far as the eye can see, a........

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