Flood Fest 2024 coming

RITZVILLE — Geology aficionados are planning their inaugural Flood Fest to tour areas scarred by the historic Missoula Floods that shaped much of modern-day Eastern Washington.

The event is set for Sept. 27-28 and will feature travel to sites across the region.

“The Bronco Inn in Ritzville will be our home base,” organizer and Ice Age Flood Institute-Palouse Falls Chapter President Michelle Plumb wrote in an email to The Journal.

Event-goers will be arriving Friday evening, after which Lloyd Stoess will provide a pre-trip lecture, “The Diverted Columbia River at the time of the Missoula Floods.”

The tour begins at 8 a.m. when a luxury bus departs for a day-long tour, with stops at Lind Coulee, Drumheller Channels, Corfu Landslide complex, Corfu ghost town, Smyrna Bench, Vantage interbed exposure, Beverly Bar, Sentinel Gap and McCoy Canyon Landslide.

There will be a lunch break at Vernita Bridge.

The afternoon includes stops at Priest Rapids Bar, Saddle Mountain Summit (the high point of the trip), Othello Channels, different exposures of the Ringold

Formation, Collier Coulee and Staircase Rapids, if time permits.

The Saturday tour will be followed by a catered banquet back at The Bronco Inn, 105 W. Galbreath Way, and close with the “Bonneville Flood and the Snake River” lecture by keynote speaker Eugene Kiver, Eastern Washington University professor emeritus.

The event is limited to 52 participants, Plumb said.

“We already have had interest from four people from Canada,” she said, encouraging those interested to sign up as soon as registration opens.

In other activities, the institute will host a 6 p.m., Sept. 19 lecture in Connell.