"Hiking alongside the Palouse Falls area, I was struck by the enormous canyon carved by glacial floods: basalt columns formed by magma 17 million years ago, tight horseshoe bends in the river, and the channeled scablands unique to this region. A geology specialist explained how monstrous Ice Age floods pushed tons of sediment that the wind later dispersed into deep loess deposits — in some places more than 100 feet deep — the same windblown soil in which Umiker grows her Syrah; as we drifted down the Palouse I also noticed a golden eagle cruising the hillsides and lichen-dusted canyon walls rising above cattail-lined channels." - Becky Cooper