Pass-to-Pass 2014: Day 2

Here is a shot of Jody in front of the Middle Sister. We were just getting our first glimpses of the South Sister. You can just see it hiding behind the trees on the right:

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Finally we got a good view of the South Sister. As the youngest Sister, it has the least amount of mountain removed by glaciation and still maintains much of it’s original shape:

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This picture is looking west (away from the Sisters) toward The Husband. This is a much older volcano, highly eroded to the point that most of what remains is the volcanic plug, and that is very crumbly stone, described as “graham crackers held together by static electricity”. At 7,524′ high it isn’t the tallest mountain around, but it’s bigger than most and quite beautiful:

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This area is full of small trickles of water working their way downhill:

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All that water, coupled with sunshine, results in wildflowers:

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Snow Buttercup (thanks to Tina H for the identification):

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Red Indian Paintbrush:

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Heather:

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All this made for fantastic places to cool off, get some water, and just drink in the beauty:

Not that it was all frolicking among the flowers. A good amount of the terrain was rocky and somewhat bare:

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I found this rock outcropping that has clear marks from being run over by a glacier. You can see that the stone is rounded and has grooves all running left to right. In the last ice age, all of this was covered in hundreds of feet of ice, slowly sliding down the slope and grinding down everything in its path:

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3 Comments:

  1. What a wonderful trip! We are all enjoying living vicariously through you and Jody’s adventure. :) Love you!

  2. Hi, thanks for the posts. My husband and I are about to embark on a 4 day trip into the 3 Sisters via Obsidian area and were interested in what you had to say and your photos. Regarding the flower: it’s Snow Buttercup, Ranunculus eschscholtzii
    Tina

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