If you think Washington State is all cascading peaks, misty coastlines, and endless evergreen forests, think again! That’s the side that gets all the love on social media. But there’s a whole other Washington on the far side of the mountains: arid, rural, wide open, and home to some of the darkest, clearest night skies in the country. This is Eastern Washington, and honestly, it barely looks like it belongs to the same state.
This year I made myself a promise, to explore my own state more, and by that I mean the eastern half I’d been quietly ignoring. The reason I hadn’t until now is simple: I spent the last few years on a mission to see all 50 states. Now that I’ve finally checked that off, I’ve got a new list and a lot of ground closer to home to cover.
And like I said, Eastern Washington is a completely different animal from the west. You can see it in every video and photo I shot out there, it’s practically a desert. Dry mountains, ancient rock cliffs, rolling hills that turn absurdly green in spring, and calm blue lakes tucked into deep canyons. Before we get into the spots, let me quickly explain why this side of the state looks the way it does because the geology here is the whole story.
What Makes Eastern Washington So Different
Around 15 to 6 million years ago, enormous cracks opened in the earth here and flooded the whole region with basalt lava, not once, but over and over. Those flows stacked up thousands of feet thick and hardened into the dark, layered cliffs you see everywhere out east. This is the Columbia Plateau, and that black volcanic rock is its signature.
Then came the Ice Age, and this is where it gets wild. A giant ice dam in Montana held back a lake the size of two Great Lakes. Every time that dam failed, and it failed dozens of times, a wall of water taller than a skyscraper came roaring across Eastern Washington at freeway speeds. These are the Missoula Floods, and they scoured the basalt down to bare rock, gouged out deep canyons called coulees, and left behind a raw, stripped landscape geologists call the Channeled Scablands. Almost every spot on this list exists because of those floods.
The last ingredient is wind. Over thousands of years, it piled up fine windblown silt into the soft, rolling hills of the Palouse, the ones that glow electric green in spring and gold by late summer. Add in the Cascades blocking most of the rain (that’s the “rain shadow” that keeps this side dry), and you get a high desert of sagebrush, basalt, and some of the best stargazing skies in the Lower 48.
Okay… geology class over. Let’s get to the spots. 🤣
Top 10 Spots to Visit in Eastern Washington
Quick note before we start: I’ve deliberately left the bigger towns out of this list, places like Spokane, Chelan, and Ellensburg, because they each get their own dedicated post (links at the bottom). This one is all about the standalone attractions that are genuinely unique to Eastern Washington, the kind of places you plan a whole road trip around.
Palouse Falls
If you only see one thing on this list, make it this one. Palouse Falls drops nearly 200 feet in a single thunderous plunge into a huge circular basin, and the whole thing is wrapped in sheer basalt walls that look almost man-made. It’s dramatic in a way photos never fully capture.
Here’s the cool part: this waterfall is a leftover from the Ice Age floods. The Palouse River today is a modest little river, way too small to have carved something this massive. The floods did the heavy lifting, and the falls have been slowly frozen in place ever since. In 2014 it was officially named the state waterfall of Washington, and once you stand at the overlook, you’ll get why.
Go in spring when snowmelt has the falls roaring and the surrounding hills are green. Summer flow drops off but the light and the dark skies at night make it worth it either way.
đź“Ť Palouse Falls State Park, near LaCrosse (southeast WA) | Discover Pass required for parking
Wild Horse Monument
You’ll be driving along I-90 near Vantage, minding your own business, and then you glance up at the ridge and there they are, a herd of steel horses galloping across the skyline. The official name is “Grandfather Cuts Loose the Ponies,” but everyone just calls it the Wild Horse Monument.
Created by artist David Govedare in 1989, the installation is a line of 15 life-size metal horses charging along the bluff above the Columbia River. There’s a short but steep trail up to them, and standing among the horses with the river valley stretched out below is one of those unexpectedly moving roadside moments. The artist’s original vision was even bigger, a giant basket of horses being released across the land, but even in its current form, it’s become one of the most photographed spots in the state.
Time it for golden hour when the horses turn to silhouette against the sky. Bring water, there’s zero shade on that climb.
đź“Ť Wild Horse Monument, off I-90 near Vantage | Free | short uphill hike
Ginkgo Petrified Forest
Here’s one most people drive right past. Near Vantage, overlooking the Columbia River, is one of the most unusual fossil sites in the country, a petrified forest that includes rare petrified ginkgo wood, which is almost unheard of anywhere in the world.
The story goes back to those basalt lava flows. Millions of years ago, an ancient forest here was buried under lava and water, and the wood slowly turned to stone, cell by cell. Much later, the Ice Age floods stripped away the rock and exposed the fossilized logs. There’s an interpretive center at the top with polished specimens, plus short trails where you can see petrified logs still in the ground, protected under metal cages. It’s low-key, quiet, and genuinely fascinating if you like the deep-time stuff.
Pair it with the Wild Horse Monument and Frenchman Coulee, they’re all clustered around Vantage.
đź“Ť Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park, Vantage | Discover Pass required
Grand Coulee Dam
Some places are impressive because they’re pretty. The Grand Coulee Dam is impressive because it’s just flat-out enormous. Stretching nearly a mile across the Columbia River, it’s one of the largest concrete structures ever built in the United States and still one of the biggest power producers in North America.
Built during the Great Depression (1933–1942), it was a massive public works project that reshaped the entire region, irrigating the desert into farmland and creating Lake Roosevelt behind it. Standing at the base and looking up, the scale genuinely doesn’t compute. In summer, they run a free nighttime laser light show projected right onto the face of the dam, telling the story of the river and the land. It’s cheesy in the best way and absolutely worth staying for.
Stop by the Visitor Center first, the views from there are the best, and it puts the numbers into perspective.
đź“Ť Grand Coulee Dam Visitor Center, Grand Coulee (north-central WA) | Free | laser show summer nights
Dry Falls State Park
This might be the most mind-bending spot in Eastern Washington, and the name tells you exactly what to expect: a waterfall with no water. But Dry Falls wasn’t always dry. During the Ice Age floods, this was a waterfall roughly 3.5 miles wide and 400 feet tall, by some estimates the largest waterfall to ever exist on Earth. Ten times the width of Niagara, thundering across the desert.
Today the water is long gone and what’s left is a colossal horseshoe cliff of bare basalt, with quiet blue lakes pooled at its base. Standing at the overlook and trying to picture that much water is genuinely humbling, it’s the single best place to feel what the Missoula Floods actually did to this landscape. There’s a small interpretive center at the top that explains it all.
It sits inside Sun Lakes-Dry Falls State Park, so you can pair the overlook with a swim or a paddle in the lakes below.
📍 Dry Falls Overlook, Sun Lakes–Dry Falls State Park, near Coulee City | Discover Pass required
Stonehenge Memorial
No, you didn’t take a wrong turn to England. Perched on a bluff above the Columbia River sits a full-size concrete replica of Stonehenge, complete and un-ruined, the way the original would have looked when it was new.
It was built by eccentric businessman Sam Hill as a memorial to local soldiers who died in World War I, and it holds the distinction of being one of the first WWI monuments in the country. Hill had (mistakenly) been told the original Stonehenge was used for human sacrifice, and built his version as a statement that young men were still being sacrificed, to the “god of war.” Heavy backstory for a roadside stop, but it lands. The setting, high above the river with nothing but sky around it, makes it feel genuinely solemn rather than gimmicky.
It’s near the Maryhill Museum, so you can easily combine the two.
đź“Ť Maryhill Stonehenge Memorial, near Goldendale (south-central WA) | Free
Steptoe Butte
If the Palouse hills are Eastern Washington’s most photographed landscape, Steptoe Butte is where you go to shoot them. It’s a lone quartzite peak rising about 1,000 feet above an ocean of rolling farmland, and a paved road spirals all the way to the top.
Here’s the geeky-cool bit: the butte is actually older than everything around it. When all that basalt lava flooded the region millions of years ago, this ancient quartzite peak was tall enough to poke out above the flows like an island. Geologists literally named a landform after it, a “steptoe” is any old peak surrounded by younger lava. From the summit you get a 360-degree view of the Palouse’s rolling patchwork, which looks unreal at sunrise and sunset when the low light rakes across every curve of the hills.
Spring (May–June) is peak green. Come for sunset, stay for the stars, the dark skies up here are ridiculous.
đź“Ť Steptoe Butte State Park, near Colfax (the Palouse) | Discover Pass required
Spokane Falls
You don’t expect a genuine roaring waterfall in the middle of a downtown, but Spokane has exactly that. The Spokane Falls tumble right through the heart of the city inside Riverfront Park, and in spring runoff they absolutely thunder, surprising for such an urban setting.
The falls have been the center of life here for a very long time; local tribes gathered at these falls for salmon fishing for centuries before the city grew up around them. The best way to see them is the SkyRide gondola, which glides out over the gorge and dangles you right above the whitewater. It’s a small thrill for not much money and easily the best view in town.
Since Spokane gets its own full post, I’ll keep this short, but the falls alone are worth the stop if you’re passing through.
đź“Ť Riverfront Park, downtown Spokane | Park free, gondola ticketed
Lake Chelan
Tucked into the foothills where the desert meets the mountains, Lake Chelan is a 50-mile-long sliver of impossibly clear water carved by ancient glaciers. It’s one of the deepest lakes in the entire country, nearly 1,500 feet at its deepest, and its far end reaches so deep into the North Cascades that the only ways to get there are by boat, floatplane, or on foot.
That remote upper end is the tiny community of Stehekin, one of the most isolated inhabited spots in the Lower 48, no roads in, no roads out. The lower end near the town of Chelan is the opposite: sunny, wine-country vibes, vineyards, and beaches. It’s this strange, wonderful split personality, high desert resort town on one side, deep glacial wilderness on the other.
Chelan has its own dedicated post, so I’ll leave the details there, but the lake earns its spot on any Eastern Washington list.
đź“Ť Lake Chelan, town of Chelan (north-central WA)
Frenchman Coulee
If you want to stand inside the geology instead of just looking at it, head to Frenchman Coulee. It’s a horseshoe-shaped canyon just off I-90 near Vantage, walled in by towering, perfectly formed basalt columns, the tall, organ-pipe kind that formed as thick lava flows cooled and cracked into hexagons.
The Ice Age floods did the carving here too, cutting this dramatic amphitheater out of the plateau. Rock climbers love it (a cluster of columns called “The Feathers” is famous in the climbing world), but you don’t need to climb a thing to enjoy it. Just wander the canyon floor, crane your neck at the cliffs, and stick around after dark, with almost no light pollution, the Milky Way over those columns is unreal. It’s the quiet, local kind of spot that most tourists never hear about.
đź“Ť Frenchman Coulee, off I-90 near Vantage | Discover Pass required
Beyond These Spots: Cities Worth a Stop
The attractions above are the wild, standalone stuff, but Eastern Washington’s towns are worth building into your route too, and each one deserves more than a paragraph. Spokane is the big city of the east, with those downtown falls, a walkable Riverfront Park, and a surprisingly good food scene. Chelan is your lake-and-wine base in the north. And Ellensburg, right where the Cascades give way to the plateau, makes a great first or last stop with its cowboy-town charm.
I’ve written separate, detailed guides for each of these, so check those out when you’re mapping your trip:
How Much Time Do You Need?
Realistically, you can’t do all ten of these in a single day, they’re spread across a big, empty region and the driving adds up.
Here’s how I’d break it:
- Weekend loop (2–3 days): Base around Vantage/Coulee City and hit Ginkgo, Wild Horse Monument, Frenchman Coulee, Dry Falls, and Grand Coulee Dam. That’s a tight, geology-packed cluster.
- The Palouse (1–2 days): Steptoe Butte and Palouse Falls pair naturally in the southeast, best in spring for the green hills.
- The south route (1 day): Stonehenge Memorial, ideally tacked onto a Columbia River Gorge trip.
- Longer road trip (5–7 days): String it all together with Spokane and Chelan as your overnight hubs.
My honest advice? Don’t rush it. Half the magic of Eastern Washington is the empty highway between the stops, the sagebrush, the basalt, the sky that just keeps going.
If you’ve been out east and have a spot I missed, drop it in the comments, I’m actively building out my Eastern Washington list this year and always want more. And if you want to see what all this actually looks like, the full video is up on the channel. Trust me, it photographs like another planet.
