Baker Cabin Lecture: Lake Missoula Floods

At the end of the Ice Age, a deluge of 540 cubic miles of water (that’s a LOT of water!) burst through an ice dam at the Clark Fork River in northern Idaho, rampaged across central Washington and down the Columbia River Gorge to the Portland/Vancouver area. It covered the Willamette Valley with up to 400 feet of water and left deep topsoil and gravel bars miles wide and hundreds of feet high. You may have heard of the ‘ice age GigaFlood’ or ‘the Missoula Floods.’ It shaped the land we live in, and we can still see the evidence of this cataclysm today.

On Saturday, March 25, at 5:30 p.m.*, we’re continuing the Baker Cabin Community Lecture Series as author Rick Thompson talks about the Lake Missoula Floods evidence in the Portland metro area. With maps and diagrams, his presentation gives an overview of the entire Lake Missoula Floods path and concentrates on the effects still seen today of the largest of those floods in northwest Oregon and southwest Washington. He will discuss how the floods influenced the settlement of Clackamas County near Carver. These stories will help us understand the impact these floods still have on our lives.

Rick Thompson is the author of GigaFlood – The Largest of the Lake Missoula Floods in Northwest Oregon and Southwest Washington. He is past president of the Lower Columbia Chapter of the Ice Age Floods Institute. He was instrumental in identifying and scripting signage for several significant glacial erratic rocks found in Washington County. Rick created self-guided driving tours based on his many field trips.

The talk is open to the public. Suggested donation: $10 per person.

18005 S. Gronlund Rd.
Oregon City, OR 97045
www.bakercabin.org