6/13 Rest Day at Palouse Falls

Palouse Falls

We had a much deserved rest day at Palouse Falls. Palouse falls is a 189 foot waterfall on the Palouse River.  I had learned about the Falls when while researching our route and I was very excited to visit.  It is the sight Tyler Bradt's worlds highest waterfall drop in a Kayak We slept early that morning and I read the The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Hemingway as the rest of the crew went and explored the canyon and took some wonderful photos.  The crew came back and recalled their journey down to the  falls, through a somewhat treacherous path down the canyon. After the scramble, there is uninterrupted access to swim in the waterfall below.  I was excited to explore and Will decided to accompany on me on my journey. We ate what we needed to,  grabbed a frisbee and some books and made our way down.  There we were greeted with our own private swimming pool in front of the majestic cascade.  We took the opportunity to explore the flora of microclimates that the spray from the falls created.  We found some interesting fungus and vegetation and discovered that as we approached the cascade on the surrounding rocks we saw many flowing rainbow spectrums in the water vapor spraying off from the falls.   We relaxed and read by the shores and soon met two met canoers who had travelled up from Lyons State Park downriver.  We found a cool spot down the canyon a bit and threw the disc.  I threw one too long and we lost it down the river.  Luckily I had an identical orange disc in my pannier that stayed with us all the way to Brooklyn.   We hiked back up the Canyon around the edge of the waterfall and observed that the angle of the main rainbow produced by the falls was changing as the sun went down.   At the end of the day the bow begins to run parallel to the falls.  It was spectacular.  When we got back to the campsite Goody, Pete, Carrie, and Ashley were chilling and we cooked up the last of our food, rice and corn tortillas.  At some point in the day Goody had found a Washington State Students ID card.   The happy student told us that he would drive from Pullman to come get it.  We told him to bring ice cream sandwiches and beer.  We camped out under the open sky and awaited the arrival of the food.  I had fallen asleep by the time the exchange happened, but Goody woke me with the plunder.  The ice cream sandwich was one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted.  

You can walk around the spires right next to the falls