Columbia River Mouth

North America’s largest river in the Pacific Northwest is the Columbia River. This 1,243-mile-long waterway flows from where it rises in the Rocky Mountains onward to the northwest region and then south into Washington state. The river then winds down toward the bordering states of Washington and Oregon, and eventually empties into the Pacific Ocean. The Columbia River extends into seven states and has a drain basin as big as France - making it the fourth largest in the US by volume with the greatest flow of any other river that enters the Pacific in North America. The Columbia Lake is 2,690 feet above sea level and connects to the Columbia Wetlands to form the river’s headwaters with trenches that are broad and deep in a long glacial valley that run between the Columbian Mountains and the Canadian Rockies. The river flows through many towns and into several lakes, such as Windermere Lake, the town of Invermere, the Columbian Valley in British Columbia, Golden and the Kinbasket Lake, through the Selkirk Mountains and into Big Bend Country. It passes through Revelstoke Lake and the Arrow Lakes, the cities of Castlegar and finally the Kootenay River and Pend Oreille River.