Eastern Washington

Eastern Washington is the half of the state that most people — including many Washingtonians — haven't explored. Separated from Seattle by the Cascade Range, it's a different world: drier, sunnier, more open, and more quietly confident about what it has to offer. The landscape ranges from the rolling wheat fields of the Palouse (some of the most photogenic agricultural land in America) to the dramatic basalt columns of the Channeled Scablands, carved by catastrophic ice-age floods that make the Grand Canyon's geology look orderly.

Spokane is the urban anchor — the second-largest city in Washington and the economic hub of the Inland Northwest. It's built around the Spokane River, which tumbles over dramatic falls right in the middle of downtown. Riverfront Park, built for Expo '74, surrounds the falls and is the heart of the city's public life. Spokane has invested heavily in its downtown over the past decade — the Kendall Yards neighborhood on the river bluff has become a walkable enclave of restaurants, shops, and farmers market energy. The city has four distinct seasons, genuine winter (think snow, not just rain), and a civic personality that's friendlier and more relaxed than the west side.

Walla Walla, 270 miles south of Spokane in the far southeastern corner of the state, has undergone one of the most remarkable transformations of any small town in America. Once a quiet farming and prison town, it's now one of the most acclaimed wine regions in the country, with over 120 wineries producing world-class Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Merlot from volcanic soils and a warm, dry growing season. The downtown is a perfect small American main street — restored brick buildings housing tasting rooms, restaurants, and the kind of independent shops that have disappeared from most towns this size. The town has attracted enough talent and investment to support a food scene that would be impressive in a city ten times its size.

Between Spokane and Walla Walla lies the Palouse — a vast agricultural region of rolling hills planted in wheat, lentils, and barley. The hills roll like ocean swells, and in late June when the wheat is young and green, the landscape looks like a living Mondrian painting. Steptoe Butte State Park offers a 360-degree viewpoint from a 3,612-foot quartzite summit surrounded by cropland in every direction — one of the most unusual and photogenic landscapes in Washington.

The region also includes the channeled scablands — a terrain of dry falls, coulees, and eroded basalt created 15,000 years ago when the largest floods in geologic history drained glacial Lake Missoula across eastern Washington. Dry Falls, a 3.5-mile-wide amphitheater of basalt cliffs where a waterfall 10 times the size of Niagara once roared, is one of the most awe-inspiring geological sites in the American West.