During the Pleistocene at the end of the last glacial period, melting glaciers in the Sierra Nevada and Inyo/White Mountains fed prodigious amounts of runoff into the Owens River, causing it to expand to many times its current size. The increased volume of the river caused Owens Lake to rise as well, eventually spilling out the south side of the valley into the Mojave Desert. Ancient, now-abandoned river channels suggest that the extended Owens River ran south to China Lake, then east into Searles Lake, north into the Panamint Valley (where it formed Panamint Lake) and finally east into Death Valley and the ancient Lake Manly. This great inland sea was also fed by the Mojave River from the south, the Amargosa River from the east and the Death Valley Wash from the north. During this relatively short time, the Owens River became part of a vast interior drainage system that stretched east to west covering over . During the peak of runoff, water from this massive basin may have even escaped to the Colorado River through a valley leading to the southeast.