The Cascade Mountains

On Wednesday I took a drive inward to the Cascade Mountains which run north-south in Oregon forming the Willamette Valley between themselves and the Coastal range. The Cascades are volcanic. There are many natural hot springs, and for the time being, sleeping volcanoes. But some mountains in this chain are active. Mount St. Helens is one of them, though it is a bit away in the north, in Washington. The western side of the Cascades are very moist, wringing out all the water out of the clouds in order for them to get over this chain of mountains. The eastern side is incredibly dry, and forms the high desert. I did travel over to see Bend, OR and decided I did not care for Bend. It's dry and not green, and too much like El Paso. I was happy to return over to the moist side of Oregon.

Now, these are MOUNTAINS!! They are still very covered in snow, and frequently the clouds scrape them, or totally enshroud them.

There is a particular gathering of three high peaks that are called the Three Sisters. I'm not sure which sister is which!

From a distance my camera did not do a very good job of capturing the view.

This is one of the Three Sisters, and she is covered by clouds, so is much higher than appearing in the picture.

This is one of the more recent volcanoes which erupted. It is central in a volcanic natural park. Now, isn't this just a really nice picture!

What follows are pictures from Oregon's largest Ponderosa Pine. I wanted to get a pic with my arms stretch around it, but they have fenced it off and ask people to not go into the fence, as all the attention it has garnered has been too compacting on the roots, and harming the tree. So, you'll just have to get a sense of the size from the series of pictures. It's quite large. Remember that the Redwoods are in California!! If I move to Oregon, I'll have to go see them.