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The Inn at Soap Lake in a great starting place for
many Grand Coulee Dam - 50 miles away
Steamboat Rock - 45 miles away
Banks Lake - 21 miles away
Blue Lake - Rhinoceros Cave - 7 miles away
Sun Lakes State Park - 12 miles away
Lake Lenore Caves - 7 miles away
"Caves formed by the plucking of basalt from the walls of the coulees by the rush of melt waters were later used as shelters by prehistoric man. A band on the move carried only the bare essentials in the way of material culture, and a family spending a few days in a cave would know what they brought with them and would be sure to leave with the same. Therefore, the absence of any large or valuable artifacts such as pestles in the caves today suggests they were used by a temporary and migratory population. The type of artifact most likely to be lost was the small scraper used in the preparation of skins. This tool is the artifact most commonly found in the caves. The population of this area was undoubtedly small, but because the people were hunters and gatherers of plant food, they must have been almost constantly on the move in search of food. A trail leading to some of these caves has been developed near the north end of Lake Lenore." The Lake Lenore Caves are located on the east wall of the lower coulee above Alkali Lake, just off of Highway 17. There are several caves, and access to the superior ones is available by moderate climbing and walking along a well defined trail. It is best to wear good walking shoes as some parts of the path are covered with crushed basalt and walking can be a little difficult. Between the latter spring months until the early autumn months, watch out for rattlesnakes. They, too, enjoy basking in the sun on the warmed basalt rocks.
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Sometimes
called the eight wonder of the world, Grand Coulee Dam is as high as
a 46-story building. Constructed during the Great Depression, the
dam features and excellent visitors' center, showing actual movie
footage shot during the construction of the dam in the 1930's. The
Dam also features a self-guided tour, where visitors can tour
several portions of the dam, including traversing the actual face of
the new 3rd Power Plant. the trip down the face of the 3rd Power
Plant is an exciting ride in a well-glassed gondola car which
carries its passengers several hundred feet down the face of the
dam> At the bottom you can see the the giant turbines rotating in
their beds as hundreds of thousands of gallons of water pour through
the raceways turning them. It's an exciting trip, especially when
you realize that you a separated from billions of gallons of water
by a few yards of concrete and steel. 
Winding
around Banks Lake on the drive to Grand Coulee Dam, on the left lies
Steamboat Rock, 800 feet high and 2 1/2 miles long, standing in the
old channel (the dry coulee) of the Columbia River. Its layers of
basalt look like the decks of a huge steamboat. Geologists think
that thousands of years ago, when the river ran through what is now
called the Grand Coulee, Steamboat Rock stood between two tremendous
waterfalls, each of them 800 feet high and 2 miles wide. There is a
State Park at the Rock which offers full facilities. 
What
do you like to catch? Bass, walleyes, trout, perch, crapppies,
catfish, burbot, sunfish, carp, lake whitefish? Banks Lake winds its
way down through the ancient and magnificent Grand Coulee, varying
from one to two miles wide. The Coulee is rimmed with stupendous
basalt cliffs. You can fish, water ski, bask in the sun, bird-watch,
eagle-watch, deer-watch, camp, and explore all along its forty-mile
length. Banks Lake was home to the largest
One
of the basalt flows in the Grand Coulee yielded an important piece
of evidence regarding the kind of life existing when the Columbia
Plateau was much younger. Not content to cover logs, trees and minor
plants, this flow killed a rhinoceros and made a cast of the body
for the record. The rhino is thought to have been covered by highly
fluid, rapid-moving basalt. Before the rhino could find an escape it
was trapped and destroyed. The fluids within the animal cooled and
hardened the rock so that the cast took the shape of the rhino's
body. Today, near Blue Lake, the positions of the legs are marked by
four cylindrical holes in the basalt, and the rounded contour of the
body is arched over the leg cavities. One side of the cave is open,
showing the shape of the rhino. 
Sun
Lakes-Dry Falls State Park is a 4,027-acre camping park with 73,640
feet of freshwater shoreline at the foot of Dry Falls. Dry Falls is
one of the great geological wonders of North America. Carved by
ice-age floods that long ago disappeared, the former waterfall is
now a stark cliff, 400 feet high and 3.5 miles wide. In its heyday,
the waterfall was ten times the size of Niagara Falls. Today it
overlooks a desert oasis filled with lakes and abundant wildlife.
Thigns to do include golfing, hiking, fishing, horseback riding,
sun-bathing, water skiing, jet skiing, swimming, wildlife watching
and much more. 
Dry
Falls , located at the south end of Banks Lake, is one of the
geological wonders of the world. It is thought that the mighty
Columbia River once formed a giant cataract two and a half times
higher and five times wider than Niagra Falls. Geologists believe
the glacial flood waters of half of North America thundered through
this historic river bed, making it the mightiest waterfall of all
time, four hundred feet high and three and one half miles wide. It
is simply amazing to observe and it truly
A
note about prehistoric people and the Lake Lenore Caves from The Dry
Falls Story, Washington State Parks: 
Located
at the top end of Billy Clapp Lake, a favorite fishing and
waterskiing lake in the region, Summer Falls State Park includes a
grassy picnic area, tables, sun shelters, rest rooms, lots of trees
and a boat launch. The falls are formed by the main canal of the
Columbia Basin Reclamation Project as it plunges over a 165 foot
basalt cliff into Billy Clapp Lake. The falls are only present
during the spring, summer and fall months when irrigation water is
running through the canal system. A 94 megawatt power plant was
constructed just east of the falls in 1984. The new power plant does
not affect the beauty of the falls. 
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