Scooteney Park/Othello Channels

When the Missoula Floods slammed into the eastern flank of the Saddle Mountains, they split around the obstruction and carved the Othello Channels -- a network of parallel flood channels that slice through the basalt south of the mountain range. The channels were created as floodwaters, unable to flow over or through the Saddle Mountains, were forced around their eastern point, concentrating into powerful streams that excavated new pathways in the Columbia River basalt. Scooteney Reservoir, situated about nine miles southeast of Othello, fills one of these flood-carved depressions and offers year-round fishing for bass, walleye, and perch. The surrounding landscape is a textbook example of the floods' ability to create complex drainage patterns in a matter of hours, with channels that look like river valleys but were carved in days rather than millennia. A hiking trail through the area follows the channels and reveals the basalt walls, scoured surfaces, and flood-deposited gravels that tell the story. The Othello Channels demonstrate that the floods were not a single monolithic torrent but a complex system of water finding its way around obstacles.