Explore the Scablands

Scabland Coulee
The floods left behind "coulees"—dry streambeds or gullies—all over what is now eastern Washington. Here, an old homestead sits in the bottom of a coulee within the "scablands," the term early settlers gave to the region's flood-scoured lands. Sagebrush blankets the steep, flood-cut slopes, while above them wheat fields take advantage of rich soils the floods didn't reach.