Eastern Washington has abundant scenery, full of interesting contrasts. Two hours east of Seattle, brilliant sunshine soaks cattle ranches, hop farms, and vineyards. Here, rodeos and Native pow wows are expressions of time-old traditions, and the annual “crush” in the fall is a newer addition. Through this countryside run the Yakima River and the mighty Columbia River, cutting swaths through gorges, arid coulees and desert dunes. Petrified forests, one of the country’s longest and deepest lakes (Lake Chelan), and Texan-big wheat fields undulating through the Palouse country all hold special attraction east of the Cascades.

In this territory, mazes of deep gorges, dry waterfalls, and basalt rock ‘coulees’ (odd-shaped craters formed by lava flows), and Noah-size floods are just some of the traits of this rugged land. Outfitters lead llama treks through the scablands, home to desert songbirds, hawks, eagles and deer.

Grand Coulee is the largest of the scabland canyons at nearly 50 miles long, 900 feet high and 1 to 6 miles wide. There are days of adventure available at the Grand Coulee Dam. Visitors can ride down the face of the third power plant in a glass-enclosed incline elevator, visit the interpretive center at Dry Falls, tour Electric City’s tribal museum and shops, and even golf. Woody Guthrie's immortal songs bring back the haunting days of the Dust Bowl, and the engineering feat and human spirit and toil that built the great dam. Today, the atmosphere is festive, with a bull-a-rama carnival in May, country music jamboree in June, a Tribal Pow Wow in July, and - as the Grand Coulee folk proclaim it - “the eighth wonder of the world featuring the world's largest laser light show,”--and it’s free!

In the central part of eastern Washington, there are plenty of peaceful pursuits: Steamboat Rock State Park on Banks Lake for angling rainbow trout, Kokannee salmon, walleye, and blue gill; Potholes Reservoir for birding; Horsethief Lake State Park for petroglyphs and swimming; and vacation houseboats for rent on forested Lake Roosevelt.