In this photo you can see the fine-grained sediment of an outwash plain that was burried when the glacier advanced and deposited till on top.
This photo and the next two are very twisted examples of orthogneiss in the Skagit metamorphic suite.
The polished spot on this rock is known as slick-n-side, it is a result of rocks sliding past one another in a fault.
In this photo you can see the Columbia River Basalts. Basalt is a mafic rock and as such its' lava is particularly hot and fluid. This fact causes it to flow like water. Each layer in the rock represents a seperate flow. These flows covered most of south east Washington and the Columbia Gorge all the way to the Puget Sound in addition to parts of Oregon and Idaho.
This photo and the next are of Dry Falls. This is the largest waterfall on earth, albiet dry. When Glacial lake Missoula let loose the force of the water here was greater than the force of all the earth's rivers combined.
This is possibly the largest erratic I have ever seen. Unlike most erratics that are moved by glaciers, this one was rafted to its current possition on an ice raft during the Missoula floods.
This cave, and many others like it, were carved into the Columbia River Basalt by the Missoula floods.
These columnar joints are near Vantage. I can't wait to go back and climb.
These next three shots are petrified wood in the Ginko Petrified Forest.
Of course rocks weren't the only photographic subjects of the trip. This is a Northern Pacific Rattlesnake
