Steamboat Rock Summit

Steamboat Rock Summit Trail ascends a remarkable 700-foot basalt mesa that rises from the waters of Banks Lake in the Grand Coulee region of eastern Washington, delivering stunning aerial views of one of the most geologically spectacular landscapes in the American West. Steamboat Rock is an erosional remnant of the ancient Columbia Plateau basalt, left standing when catastrophic Missoula Floods carved the Grand Coulee channel around it approximately 15,000 years ago. The trail climbs steeply through open sage-steppe terrain on the rock's flanks before reaching the broad, surprisingly flat summit plateau. From the top, the panorama encompasses Banks Lake stretching north and south, the sheer basalt walls of the Grand Coulee rising hundreds of feet on either side, and the semi-arid sage-steppe landscape extending to distant horizons. Banks Lake itself was created when the Columbia Basin Project dammed the coulee to create an equalizing reservoir for Grand Coulee Dam irrigation water. The summit plateau hosts scattered ponderosa pine and bunchgrass, providing habitat for western fence lizards, Townsend's ground squirrels, and a variety of sagebrush-associated birds. Prairie falcons and golden eagles hunt along the cliff edges. The basalt columns visible in the rock walls below the summit display classic hexagonal jointing formed during ancient lava cooling. A truly unique geological and scenic experience in eastern Washington.