2019 Bus Tour Series

Take a Bus Tour and Learn About Local Geology and Heritage

Join the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center this summer on our Geological and Historical Tours of the region. Sign ups are open now! Tours depart from the Museum in the morning and return by 5:00 p.m. Cost is $40 for museum members and $45 for non-members. Space is limited so early registration is encouraged. To sign up, visit our Bus Tours webpage.

Saturday, May 4 Moses Coulee Tour:

Ken Lacy will lead a tour of the Moses Coulee and the Waterville Plateau. This tour will discuss the science and Native American oral history of the rock formations created by the Ice Age Floods. Tour goers meet at the Wenatchee Valley Museum to board a tour bus that departs at 9 a.m. An overview of the Ice Age Floods will be given before departure. The first stop is at Chief Moses Council Cave. From there, the tour will continues on to Three Devils, then heads toward Waterville with a stop at Haystack Rocks. The tour stops at Chief Joseph Rest Stop for lunch then proceeds south on Hwy 97 and returns back to Wenatchee.

Saturday, June 1 Grand Coulee Tour:

Brent Cunderla will lead a tour of the Grand Coulee Ice Age Floods tour loop which begins in Soap Lake and continues north to Lake Lenore Caves, Dry Falls Interpretive Center, Sims Corner, Electric City, Banks Lake, Northrup Canyon, Coulee City, Summer Falls, and Ephrata. Tour goers meet at the Wenatchee Valley Museum to board a tour bus that departs at 8 a.m. An overview of the catastrophic Ice Age Floods and Soap Lake’s unique waters will be given. Two stops in the lower Grand Coulee include Lenore Caves and Dry Falls. A brief stop will be made to overview Dry Falls and the mouth of the upper Grand Coulee before driving up onto the Waterville Plateau. Crown Point will be the last stop before lunch. The afternoon tour stops near Northrup Canyon and travels south through Coulee City to Summer Falls. The last stop will be at “Monster Rock”.

Saturday, July 13 Wenatchee Valley Tour:

Brent Cunderla will lead a tour from Wenatchee to Leavenworth that highlights the different rock types and geologic processes that occurred over the last 100 million years. The Wenatchee Valley is unique in that all three major rock types: igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary, occur here. Numerous examples of these three rock groups will be discussed and observed on the field trip. Tour goers meet at the Wenatchee Valley Museum to board a tour bus that departs at 9 a.m.

Saturday, September 7 Wellington Railroad History Tour:

On March 1, 1910, the deadliest avalanche in North American history swept down the snowy Cascades, burying two trains and killing 96 people. Randy Dasho will lead a guided tour of the Wellington site. The tour also visits several other sites between Leavenworth and Stevens Pass that played important roles in the history of the Great Northern Railway Company. Tour goers meet at the Wenatchee Valley Museum to board a tour bus that departs at 9 a.m. The bus heads west on U.S. Highway 2, stopping for discussion at different points of interest. The final stop is the interpretive site at Wellington, where participants will have lunch and take a half-mile walk around the area of the disaster.

Saturday, September 21 Quincy Basin Tour:

Ice Age Floods using the Grand Coulee and the Upper Crab Creek drainages, filled the Quincy Basin at a rate up to 16.5 million cubic meters of water per second. This tour, led by Ken Lacy, explores the incredible erosive consequences of the floodwaters escaping the Quincy Basin, via Lynch, Potholes and Frenchman Springs Coulees. The tour will also examines the eight mile wide Drumheller Channels, through which most of the Quincy Basin floodwaters drained largely down the Lower Crab Creek drainage, toward the Columbia River at Beverly, Washington. Tour goers will meet at the Wenatchee Valley Museum to board a tour bus that departs at 9 a.m.

Saturday, October 5 Lake Wenatchee Tour:

This geologic tour is led by Ken Lacy in the Leavenworth area. The tour heads up the Wenatchee River Valley to Lake Wenatchee. The guided tour looks at everything from Chumstick sandstone, to the glacial features from both the Icicle Creek and Lake Wenatchee Glaciers. See the Leavenworth fault, identify glacial moraines, discuss how streams change with time, and examine 90 million years old igneous rocks and even older metamorphic rocks! Tour goers meet at the Wenatchee Valley Museum to board a tour bus that departs at 9 a.m. The first stop will be at Pinnacle State Park then the tour continues along Hwy 2, Chumstick Hwy, and Icicle Canyon with multiple viewing and discussion stops. The tour will stop at Lake Wenatchee State Park for lunch and return to Leavenworth via the Chumstick Hwy.