Gallery: More unhealed wounds from Washington’s nearly forgotten flood

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It's hard to believe the desert-like Scablands neighbors the rest of lush Washington state. Just ask J Harlen Bretz; he spent the better part of a century trying to convince his colleagues this landscape wasn't always so dry. As Ars writer Scott Johnson discovered, the Scablands are essentially wounds, still unhealed by time and erosion. These canyons were carved into the land after a series of unfathomably large floods unleashed by the catastrophic draining of great glacial lakes—half the volume of Lake Michigan splashed onto this land in less than a week.

Johnson crammed supplies into his backpack and attempted to survey the lands that Bretz obsessed over (and dedicated his life to studying). His feature outlines both the past and present experiences of exploring The Scablands, but there simply wasn't enough room for all the images he took of the breathtaking scene. So like the excess of water that led to its creation, an excess of visuals led to another Scablands birth (this time, only a gallery).