Two area hikes will highlight Ice Age this weekend

Two Ice Age floods hikes and lectures are scheduled for the Grand Coulee area within the coming week.

The hikes and lectures are part of several Cheney-Spokane Chapter of the Ice Age Floods Institutes efforts to give interested parties a hands-on experience to learn about the floods that scoured the area about 15,000 years ago.

Saturday, Oct. 8, beginning at 9:30 a.m., two geologists-authors, Gene Kiver and Bruce Bjornstad, will lead a hike and provide information on a 7.2-mile trek up Northrup Canyon to the lake and back.

The hike is listed as moderately difficult, and youth ages 12-16 must be accompanied by an adult.

Cost is $20 per person, and for the Northrup Canyon hike, a Discover Pass is required for all vehicles. Registration for the hike can be made at (www.iafi.org/Events). Hikers will meet at the trailhead.

A second area hike and lecture is scheduled Sunday, Oct. 9, for Candy Point Trail.

This hike also begins at 9:30 a.m. and winds its way up a steep granite-lined canyon to a spectacular view of Grand Coulee Dam and the surrounding area.

The trail was constructed by CCC crews during the Depression in the 1930s, and has periodically been cleaned by volunteers, including a few years ago by the Rotary Club.

Both hikes and lectures are open to the public and interested parties can register at the same internet address.

Two additional lectures, are free, and include an Oct. 28, event “Tracking the Willamette Meteorite” at Lair Auditorium, Building 6 at Spokane Community College. Spokane naturalist and historian Jack Nisbet will conduct the lecture starting at 7 p.m.

Another free lecture, “Catastrophic Flooding on Earth and Mars,” will be held Nov. 18 at the JFK Auditorium on the Eastern Washington University campus. This one begins at 7 p.m., led by EWU geology Professor John Buchanan.