By Hu Blonk

The state's most unusual canyon. The odd caps at the tops of the columns are called hoodoos. The caps are hard material that remained in place while softer material below them eroded away in some of the walls. Beyond the canyon the canyon walls are rolling Methow Valley hills. Deer abound there as well as in the canyon which seems to be a migratory route.

Come visit the land of the hoodoos.

Never heard of it?

Few people have.

The hoodoos, as the natural rock of fantastic shapes are called, are to be seen in a little canyon situated a few miles off the oiled road that runs between Bear Creek golf course and Pearrygin Lake on the east side of the Methow River.

It’s called Pipestone Canyon. Why? Nobody knows for sure. Some say Indians found some rock in the area ideal for making pipes. They’d stick a stem of the Rosethorn plant into the pipes and smoke them. Others think the unusual pattern of the rock forming the rim of the canyon resemble organ pipes.

As canyons go Pipestone is relatively short--about two and one half miles. But it makes up for its short length in the weird shapes forming the 1500 foot high walls that it offers to the sightseers.

"I don’t know of any other in the state that are as spectacular," said Professor J. D. Barksdale of the University of Washington’s geology staff. He’s studied the canyon as much as anyone.

And he’s found some unusual things. The canyon is relatively new as geologists judge time. "About 20,000 years," said Barksdale. "It was formed this way."

During the last ice age, called the Paleocene Age, ice came down the Chewuch River drainage, but at a much higher elevation than the riverbed is now. The only way the melt water could escape alongside the big ice deposits was around through Campbell Lake. There the water started to eat its way down, finally forming the gorge now called Pipestone Canyon.

The geologic formation consists of inter bedded conglomerates, sand stones, silt stones and shales. Conglomerate is the word used to describe a collection of material varying from small pebbles to large boulders in a cement of hardened clay or other material. Some enormous boulders three feet in diameter have been found.

In the lawyers are situated fine grain sediments of a prehistoric lake in which leaves are preserved. The fossils lie between the conglomerates--hardened gravel. And strange leaves they are. There’s redwood, or what was forerunner of the present redwood, called the meta sequoia. There’s the water chestnut, the kind you eat in the Chinese restaurants. A family of this type of tree grows in the Orient. There are the broad leaves of the banana family. And the Cycad--a fern--which resembles the large tree-like ferns prevalent in Australia.

The finding of the leaves of plants indicates that while the area was not truly tropic, many centuries ago it was "pretty warm," as Barksdale puts it. He said the sediment is about 2500 feet deep, of which 1800 are exposed--and that to a geologist is what finding gold is to the prospector.

Such a wealth of natural phenomena influences the people of the region. Those living in the Methow Valley are so influenced to the extent of writing about it, photographing it, and of making frequent pilgrimages to it.