I’m very fascinated by the geographic diversity of WA alone

Submitted by Starfox_2020 t3_11ipctb in Washington

Me being from BC, I generalize BC as full of mountains, forests and not a single piece of flat land or change of scenery. The most that looks different is the Kelowna region where the mountains are brownish with no trees. But time, I was playing around with Maps and I found out once you pass through the cascades on the I-90, it eventually becomes flat and brown. If you take the I-82 south towards Yakima, you can see the change that’s 100% opposite of what you see on the west coast. It makes me really want to visit the rest of Washington outside of the Seattle area. It’s amazing how deserts can become a thing after you cross the 49th!

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Karuna56 t1_jazfaoi wrote

I am also amazed and I majored in Geography at University. Here in Washington, we have glaciers, temperate rain forest, fjords, high desert, grasslands, mountain peaks, volcanoes, and much much more. I really believe that Washington has the most geographic diversity of all 50 States.

Plus Sasquatch.

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NINNINMAN t1_jazrmkn wrote

Not to mention’s the grand coulee which feels like it’s own place from the rest of the state

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allybra t1_jazlttj wrote

Ok, question for you then. Where is eastern Wa? ID border to cascades or ID border to Ritzville? For real, not messing with you. It bothers me that people don’t account for central Wa , which looks like Amarillo Tx, and say everything beyond cascades is eastern wa

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brobinson206 t1_jb04v61 wrote

Having grown up here, collectively we call anything east of the cascades “eastern Washington” because the cascades provide such a clear cultural and climatological divide. I see Central WA as a subregion of eastern WA, and I genuinely don’t know anybody who really uses the term central WA (unlike in Oregon where Central Oregon is used frequently). That said, where central WA ends and you just have the rest of eastern WA, I’m not sure. I see Highway 97 being the spine of central WA. Ritzville is a likely dividing line between central and eastern, but I could also see that at Moses lake too.

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lampstore t1_jb1l05r wrote

Yeah, I’ve lived in Western, Central, and Eastern WA. Only people from Central WA refer to it as Central, and even then often use “east of the mountains” since usually we’re talking about traveling back and forth to western WA. Everyone else uses Eastern and Western exclusively.

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impulsiveclick t1_jb1m7cz wrote

Ooo we should dignify central then. SW Washington feels itself different than everywhere and often feel more like we are in a weird relationship with Oregon… but then again I’m in Vancouver so… we’re pretty much just Portland suburbs. But you know even people in Skamania county work in Portland

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freckledtabby t1_jb29a7n wrote

I grew up in King County. I only know three zones, Eastern, Western, and the Olympic Peninsula AKA "the coast".

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Rocketgirl8097 t1_jb21twt wrote

Only time I hear it is Central Washington state fair, which is held in Yakima.

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Hfpros t1_jb3f2b5 wrote

Cle elum or ellensburg is more like the line. Ask anyone there and they'll say they live in Eastern WA. Don't ask my source :z

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TheFairAmerican t1_jb0jrkp wrote

I always consider Eastern WA to be from the Columbia river gorge east. Central is this real narrow band, once you hit the basalt flats you’re there?

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TheGruntingGoat t1_jb1p903 wrote

As someone who lives outside of Vancouver, WA, this confused me for a minute unit I figures out which Columbia river gorge you were talking about. I’m used to thinking if the one that forms the Oregon border.

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pablopolitics t1_jb0s1wh wrote

Funny, like Spokane being all woods I see your point. That said if you drew a line down the cascades which most people mentally do, 80% of the eastern side is like shrubland

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waltc97 t1_jb04bze wrote

Opinion of a geographer: if you make two divisions, the cascade crest should be the division between east and west, but I like the concept of an eastern, central, and west Washington. I can't help but wonder, if you're going to make the divisions though, could that third division be better used to highlight another part of the state with more distinction from the rest than the difference the near east side of the Cascades had from the rest of the eastern state. Eg: east and west and Spokane region is third division? East and West but Seattle metro and the islands get the third division?

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Ecofre-33919 t1_jb1zk25 wrote

This bugs me too. But i’m used to it. I grew up in a part massachusetts near new york state. But in MA - everything outside of the boston suburbs is western ma. So cities like springfied and worchester - really more central mass - were all considered western ma. I live in yakima now and have lived in seattle. I really think i’m in central wa now, not eastern.

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leftwingninja t1_jb2tmbg wrote

I moved from Lubbock, TX to north of Spokane 20 years ago. The first time I drove across the state, I thought I had been transported back to the Texas Panhandle when I got past Ritzville.

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bigmik450 t1_jb0zpyj wrote

I’m from Amarillo and when I try to describe it to people. I tell them take Spokane and drop it an hour west around Ritzville and you have Amarillo.

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OceanPoet87 t1_jb2q70t wrote

I lived 5 and a half years in North SnoCo/Island Co in Western WA and currently live almost as far east as you can get before going into Idaho. I moved here almost three years ago.

In both places: Western WA = West of the Cascade Crest / any of the counties west of the Cascades. Eastern WA = All of the remaining counties east of the Cascades.

A subregion of Western WA could be the Puget Sound Region or another example, SW Washington which aligns more with Portland. See Clark County as an example.

Central WA = Central Washington University in Ellensburg - nice little town. The Central WA area is more like a subset or subregion of Eastern Washington as a whole. If you really want to know what counties would consider themselves central, here is a map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Washington#/media/File:Central_Washington.svg

For the counties that are light pink in that link... I don't really consider Kicklitat (despite being in the center of the state), Benton / Franklin (Tri Cities), or Adams (the county that looks like a backwards Idaho or Utah) to be Central WA.

The main difference is Eastern Washingtonians call it the "East Side" whereas in Western WA, the East Side refers to the eastern Suburbs of King County.

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modestmouselover t1_jazrzki wrote

I didn’t know the puget sound was a system of fjords! I’ve never wanted to learn about the local geography more than right now

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TheFairAmerican t1_jb0k0ja wrote

Check out its history and you’ll be left going….huh? Consider that Juan De Fuca wasn’t Juan De Fuca at all. And maybe didn’t exist. As a hint, Fuca is the Spanish feminine form of “pond scum”.

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seattleskindoc t1_jb22sgu wrote

Oregon really has amazing geographic diversity as well. There are multiple dry lake playas in SE Oregon and a plethora of hot springs and warm creeks as well. Parts of the state feel far more remote than WA.

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Rocketgirl8097 t1_jb21h5r wrote

Technically though, we have no deserts. We have too much precipitation to be classified as such. What we have is shrub-steppe. And none of it is high elevation. About 1600 ft ASL at most. Southeastern part of Oregon - now that's high desert. 4500 ft ASL at Burns.

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OhCrapImBusted t1_jb2i8c1 wrote

Where I live (Pullman, WA) my house is 2450 ft ASL. There is a definite drop on HWY 26 around Hooper (historical route of the Palouse River), but it goes back up quite a bit after Washtucna. From there to Kittitas its extremely dry, and isn't viable for farming without irrigation.

It may not be "High Desert" by definition, but it is Desert nonetheless.

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Rocketgirl8097 t1_jb2lo4o wrote

It is desert-like. It is not desert. It is shrub-steppe. There are grasses, sage, phlox, and many other plants that grow naturally. You don't have that in a desert. The only deserts in the u.s. are the Mohave, Great Basin, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan.

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OceanPoet87 t1_jb2s7mr wrote

Much of Central WA is semi arid, you're right... no desert. I'm in a shadowed area somewhat, but even going 10-20 miles west, the precipitation drops dramatically as you go towards the basin.

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VanGoFuckYourself t1_jazxxrr wrote

In a comparable size is there anywhere in the world that you can say hands down has more geographic diversity?

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Hopsblues t1_jb13bub wrote

South Africa. Colorado and Cali have wide ranges of diversity.

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mafi23 t1_jb1m1ju wrote

Chile has a crazy amount of diversity but comparing a country to a state isn’t fair. If you throw in the mainland USA it easily beats Chile.

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guevera t1_jb17p1c wrote

Sorry, Sasquatch is a NorCal thing. Centered on Willow Creek, CA. You all need to step off our beast yo :)

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Karuna56 t1_jb1j92j wrote

Ape Caves, near Mt. Adams. Ask the Coast Salish peoples yo ;)

Edit: Salish peoples generally.

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guevera t1_jb2gc23 wrote

Why would the coast Salish peoples have anything to say about mt Adams, in the Yakama Nation?

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Karuna56 t1_jb3lxam wrote

Sorry, I meant the Salish peoples in general.

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LiqdPT t1_jb1fzjy wrote

Natives all up and down the west coast have legends of Saquatch like creatures long before the 1958 discovery of prints in Humboldt.

As for Sasquatch being a NorCal thing, the Sonics had Saquatch as a mascot... 😉

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impulsiveclick t1_jb1n823 wrote

We made a law to protect Sasquatch. it’s a felony to kill or harm Sasquatch

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LiqdPT t1_jb1z9tt wrote

Who is "we" in this context?

Edit: I just realized what sub I'm in, so I assume you mean Washington.

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impulsiveclick t1_jb3v0vk wrote

Yeah specifically Skamania County. SW Washington pride right there. It declared all undiscovered animals endangered species. uwu

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rosesandpiglets t1_jazfi8r wrote

Yup, WA has rainforest and desert. You can go from a place that average 7 and a half inches of rain a year to one that averages 125, in like 6 hours.

Alaska has WA beat for sheer awesome beauty, but WA definitely has more diverse terrain.

Also fun fact WA produces about 70% of Americas apples.

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-QFever- t1_jazi9w6 wrote

And Yakima Valley produces 75% of America's hops (more hops then produced in the country of Germany).

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guevera t1_jb17jfv wrote

The Yakima Valley is the perfect territory for hops. Which means its also the perfect territory for growing weed. Yet the local political establishment has prevented any legal pot grows in the valley. It's almost funny watching TPTB, who have been whores for agriculture their whole lives, trying to justify not allowing pot growing.

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Hfpros t1_jb3fcmt wrote

Neighboring counties with similar fertile ground have welcomed a lot of growers. Pretty sure most weed you'll find in a pot shop in indoor gorwn.

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guevera t1_jb3zinh wrote

Yeah...it just is kinda amusing that the county celebrates hops.. so you'd think they'd be all about the new market for hops' closest relative -- cannabis -- but no.

Less amusing is the amount of growers they still bust for growing in the lower valley.

As far as indo vs outdoor a lot of operations were ditching indoor in favor of greenhouse and light dep grows because of the cost of electricity versus the plunging price of weed. That may have changed some as the new LED lights have become viable, IDK....

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homecookedcouple t1_jazfxg9 wrote

And more than 90% of the organic apples. Also interesting that I can buy WA apples cheaper thousands of miles away from WA than at home in WA. Economics.

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Plonsky2 t1_jazdlt1 wrote

America's Switzerland!

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[deleted] t1_jb28koi wrote

I went hiking in NCNP with a friend from Switzerland, off SR 20. When we summited and could see from Mount Baker to Mount Rainier, he said it looked like the Alps, except it would include parts of Italy, France, Germany and Switzerland.

Switzerland. 15,943 sq mi Washington 71,362 sq mi

He was also surprised at the amount of snow in the summer, and the lack of infrastructure in the park. He was surprised that the creeks were not bridged.

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sahm8585 t1_jb1xthr wrote

Our family friends from Switzerland think that’s the funniest thing. One year we got them all matching sweatshirts with “Washington, the Switzerland of America!” on them.

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redit-fan t1_jazgur9 wrote

Check out the geology in the valley between Leavenworth and Wenatchee. It’s like the center of the rock world.

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Doyouseenowwait_what t1_jazfxpz wrote

The fun part is to follow the largest geological event in the PNW . The great floods essentially shaped everything from Montana to the Pacific ocean. To follow the whole event and really see what it did is pretty fascinating. You will start up by Glacier national park and end in the wine country of the Willamette Valley.

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HypermobilePhysicist t1_jazhw8b wrote

You can experience a huge array of climates just within Olympic National Park

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Loisalene t1_jb0kvbm wrote

Western WA is made of "exotic terranes" that came here from Mexicoish. The continental US border is around Spokane.

If you really like geography, Dr. Nick Zentner of CWU has many many videos on YouTube. He's really understandable and he knows his stuff!

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Nixx_Mazda t1_jb0efrj wrote

'From sea level to ski level' is part of one slogan I've seen for the state.

Yes I feel lucky to have been born here and able to call it home. As a photographer there is a wide variety of scenery.

In about 3 hours I can be at the ocean, or rain forest, or desert, or mountains, etc...

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ScallopOolong t1_jb13yln wrote

My computer desktop wallpaper is this satellite image of the PNW centered on Washington and going up into BC. The Great Columbia Plain, or Plateau (even though it is surrounded by mountains) of Eastern WA is striking. Can clearly see how this flatter, more arid region extends into the Okanagan region in BC, with Kelowna and all.

And how most of BC is not like the Columbia Plateau. Besides the Okanagan region there are pockets that look somewhat similar in the BC Interior, up the Fraser Canyon, Lillooet area, the Chilcotin plateaus, but mostly that region is more rugged and constrained in valleys.

Other things I like about this image—BC's Coast Mountains are dense and right up against the ocean, leaving very little land similar to Western WA, except Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland. Though there's nothing in WA quite like the lower Fraser River and delta, which dominate the Lower Mainland. One could argue that the lower Columbia River is similar, and it is in some ways, but also different in a bunch of ways.

I also like how on this image you can see the network of large flood channels in eastern WA where the Missoula Flood waters rampaged, making lots of coulees and the Channeled Scablands. Also how clear the Willamette Valley in OR is, and the darker greens of Olympic National Park, compared to the patchy logging lands around it. Also how the Columbia River doesn't take the straighter path through the Columbia Plateau but skirts around the northern and western edges, going north and west of Banks Lake / Grand Coulee and Moses Lake, by Lake Chelan and south along the very edge of the Cascades. I think long long ago flood basalt lava filled the region and forced the Columbia to "go around" as best it could, making it take a rather circuitous and twisty route.

How different it would be if the US and UK had agreed to make the Columbia the border!

All that said, when my wife and I moved to Washington from the eastern US about 25 years ago one of the first longer road trips we took was up through BC to the Canadian Rockies, and we were very surprised by how arid and epic the landscapes of south-central BC are. The grandeur and also the dryness of the Fraser Canyon up near Lillooet really surprised us. And driving from Lillooet to Vancouver felt sorta like your description of I-90 in WA. The landscape went from dry arid steppe-like semi-desert shurbland to dry forests similar to the eastern slope of the Cascades in WA, to the super lush areas around Pemberton and southwards. Lots of geographic diversity up in BC too. And fjords galore! Not too many of those in the US outside of Alaska. More recently I've been learning a little about the far north of BC and things like Level Mountain, a vast volcanic complex with "unusual" landscapes.

edit: a coupel tpyos

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Nixx_Mazda t1_jb372ag wrote

Cool photo, good observations.

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ScallopOolong t1_jb3i436 wrote

Thanks 🙂 .. It might be obvious but I'm something of a geography dork, especially PNW geography.

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OceanPoet87 t1_jazkjs9 wrote

Wheat is huge in my corner of the state. Other spots are big for Apples, Wine, and Onions among many others.

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pablopolitics t1_jb0rdv8 wrote

Lot of good natural history. Basically everything east of the cascades use to be a giant rainforest 3.5 million years ago. 12,000 years ago it was all glaciers that formed the gorge, grand coulee and ancient lakes (picture Niagara Falls but dried up now). Seriously so much cool wonder out in eastern Washington being from western Washington I thought it was all desert. There’s little nuggets of history everywhere. Here check out this website of top 100 natural sites in Washington. It was made by the Washington Geological Society. I recently moved to eastern Washington and I’ve visited almost every place now

https://wa100.dnr.wa.gov/

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Zhenja92 t1_jb1m43q wrote

Kittitas County, right on the other side of Snoqualmie Pass, gets 105"/year at the wettest spot and about 7"/year at the driest. It is about 85 miles from one side of the county (Snoqualmie Pass) to the other (Vantage on the Columbia River.) I'm in GIS (mapping) and am always amazed at how many people (even in mapping conferences) think that the state is all wet like Seattle, when most of the state is arid.

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Hfpros t1_jb3fj5k wrote

S/o to Kittitas county nice. I90 runs right through and feeds a shit ton of truckers headed east.

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Zhenja92 t1_jb3vkbf wrote

And we feed even more when the pass closes - as they stop traffic in Ellensburg. We are not quite the geographic center of the state (that is closer to Wenatchee), but we are definitely in the transportation center.

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OhCrapImBusted t1_jb2gn9k wrote

Most don't realize the "Great North American Desert" isn't relegated to the Southwest US.

It actually stretches through central and eastern Oregon straddling the OR/ID border and comes to a point traveling through central WA state. It's northern tip is sandwiched between the Kittitas valley and the flats west of Airway Heights, WA. It very roughly follows the route of the Columbia river. In fact, if you look at the area near Grand Coulee Dam and Banks Lake you will see the extreme northern reaches of the GNAD.

Following the river as it flows south will take you through high-desert areas around Yakima and Tri-Cities. Note how most of the area farms in this region rely on irrigation. Without the dams and irrigation canals/projects, this land would not be as productive at best, and would revert to unfarmable deserted lands at worst.

If I might, I want to throw out how WA state has many very diverse bio-regions, including a rainforest on the Olympic peninsula, and all the lush rolling hills of farmland of the Palouse region south of Spokane.

Aside from the occasional mountain blowing up every 500 years or so, WA state is awesome!

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Ecofre-33919 t1_jb1xpyw wrote

Yeah - its high desert climate. The cascades stop the rain. Thats the wet side. Other side of the cascades is the dry side. They get lots of sunshine. So Boise, ID, Salt lake city, UT - pretty much all the same climate.

You don’t have a dry side in BC? Is it really all forest?

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freckledtabby t1_jb28s2u wrote

I hope you get a chance to see the rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula. it is enchanting!

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BudSmoker509 t1_jb2dhe4 wrote

Born and raised in Spokane playing hockey. Spokane was when I played the only us team we played Canadian teams and traveled allot to Canada. I couldn't believe being hours from the border and most Canadians didn't even know of Spokane. Lol

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washdot t1_jb3avph wrote

It used to be driving east once you left Seattle there wasn’t any decent coffee til you hit Spokane. Then they put in a Starbucks in Moses Lake, which some would debate is “decent” coffee, but it’s something. I’d say the line was moved over to Moses Lake, for coffee purposes. Kind of a dessert after that!

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Another_Penguin t1_jb3kt3s wrote

Plot a path to Hell's Canyon via the palouse. The stretch where Highway 95 descends to the Snake river is something you gave to experience for yourself. For a longer trip, head out to Idaho and see Craters of the Moon.

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