It's hard to get a feel for the size of the cliffs from a picture. The trees at the base are 20 to 30 foot cottonwoods.

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They were here because their nest building material (mud) was readily available. The volcanic ash cliffs actually soaked up water several feet and had a dark wet rim around the bottom, as seen here. The swallows are all flapping their wings because they don't have enough body mass to drive their beaks into the packed ash. They have to "fly" into it.

There were more cliff swallows here than on the basalt cliffs. Huge colonies that would swarm out like bees.

It's hard to get a feel for the size of the cliffs from a picture. The trees at the base are 20 to 30 foot cottonwoods.

The cliffs go on for several miles.

This looked vaguely like an old fortification, but it is simply the way that the layers of volcanic ash erode. Unlike the basalt cliffs of most of the Columbia, this area has soft clay-like cliffs. The current kept me busy at the helm and photos took second place.

The terrain starts to get interesting.

M

It's hard to get a feel for the size of the cliffs from a picture. The trees at the base are 20 to 30 foot cottonwoods.

Marco Flamingo
Apr 23, 2016

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