HIKING -- The Cheney-Spokane Chapter of the Ice Age Floods Institute has several educational programs planned for October, and it's not too early to sign up for limited spaces on two geologist-led hikes in the upper Grand Coulee area.

Both hikes will be led by geologists-authors Gene Kiver and Bruce Bjornstad. Costs are about $20 per hike. Pre-registration required online at www.iafi.org/Events.

• Oct. 8 -- Hike Northrup Canyon, 7.2 miles, moderately difficult.  Youths ages 12-16 must be accompanied by adult.  Hikers will meet at Steamboat Rock State Park's Northup Canyon trailhead at 9:30 a.m.  A Discover Pass is required on vehicles. 
• Oct. 9 -- Hike Candy Point on short but moderately strenuous walk on steep trail constructed by the CCC during the depression years leading through a side canyon near the town of Coulee Dam. Starts at 9:30 a.m.  

Lectures are free and open to the public as follows.

• Oct. 28, "Tracking the Willamette Meteorite"  by Jack Nisbet, Spokane naturalist and historian, 7 p.m. at the Lair Auditorium, Building 6, at Spokane Community College.
• Nov. 18, "Catastrophic Flooding on Earth and Mars," by John Buchanan, EWU geology professor, 7 p.m. at the JFK Auditorium, Eastern Washington University in Cheney.