Moscow lies on the edge of a unique geographic area labeled as one of the seven wonders of Washington, the Palouse. With rolling hills perfect for agriculture, the communities on the Palouse are often thriving farming towns.
Moscow is a little different than a typical farming town, especially because of the University of Idaho. Many people wandering through Moscow will see someone who drives a Subaru Outback, wears outdoorsy clothing and always has a beanie on their head, or they’ll see groups of college students, especially downtown and near campus. Whether someone’s a visitor or resident, no one comes to Moscow and says they don’t want to spend time outside.
Northeast of Moscow lies Moscow Mountain, where the public can access hobbies like hiking, mountain biking, snowshoeing, mushroom hunting and more. It’s a forested oasis on the edge of the rolling hills that progress into the St. Joe National Forest as they stretches north.
While the mountain may not be the biggest one ever, especially compared to the Rockies, it is an old relic of the landscape that occupied this portion of the continent before it became the Palouse.
The granite that makes up the mountain is exposed granite and is part of the Idaho Batholith, a type of mountain made up of igneous rock. Yosemite is another example of a batholith.
While the Palouse region is littered with other mountains, like Kamiak Butte and Steptoe Butte, those are made of exposed belt rocks, usually made of rocks like sandstone or limestone, that are significantly older than the granite that makes up Moscow Mountain.
The granite of Moscow Mountain is between 65 and 85 million years old. It was here long before the winds brought over the mineral-rich loess, a result of the massive Missoula floods that swept the land after a glacial lake’s dam burst, to create the rolling hills used for agriculture today.
The Missoula floods, also called the Ice Age floods, washed over the Pacific Northwest repeatedly during the last Ice Age between 12,000 and 18,000 years ago. The glaciers that moved south from Canada ground into the earth to create a fine rock dust called glacial flour, which accumulated in the Glacial Lake Missoula and was swept across the Pacific Northwest with the floods.
After the floods stopped, tens of thousands of years of wind carried all that silt to Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho, creating the loess hills that resemble giant sand dunes across the region.
East Moscow Mountain, Idler’s Rest, Gnat Creek and Headwaters are all popular places near Moscow Mountain where people go to get a healthy dose of the outdoors. Most of the land on Moscow Mountain is private, and the land with public access is granted to the community by the landowners in cooperation with MAMBA, the Moscow Area Mountain Bike Association.
East Moscow Mountain is about a 45-minute drive from Moscow itself. To get there, head east on Highway 8 until Troy, then take a left on Big Meadow Road and another left on Randall Flat Road. Keep going for just over two miles until Tamarack Road. After a few miles, there should be multiple places to stop and explore Moscow’s favorite outdoor adventure.
Anteia McCollum can be reached at [email protected]