geology

The Painted Hills

August 14, 2012
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The Painted Hills of north-central Oregon belong on anyone’s short list of must-see landscapes in the Pacific Northwest. Hidden in a remote of valley of the Ochoco Mountains, the Painted Hills are far from any major urban centers. For most of us, it’s a long drive to reach them. But the trip is worth it if you have any interest in geology, fossils, or…

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Sturgeon Rock

October 13, 2011
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I hiked up to the top of Silver Star Mountain (NE of Vancouver, WA) last weekend and got a great view of Sturgeon Rock. Sturgeon Rock (4,035 ft elevation) is a big chunk of basalt, a type of volcanic rock that is very common in the Cascades Range. The columns…

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Mickey Hot Springs

July 11, 2011
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A blog post inspired me to take a long road trip to southeastern Oregon last weekend. I’ve been wanting to see Steens Mountain and the Alvord Desert for years and a blog post about the region on Jim Johnson’s Northwest Dragonflier site convinced me that it was finally…

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Glacial Erratics: Rafted Rocks of the Ice Ages

June 27, 2011
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The countryside of the Willamette Valley in Oregon is peppered with strange, incongruous boulders called glacial erratics. Many of these boulders are made of granitic or metamorphic rock– rare types in this region. Most of the “native” rocks in western Oregon were…

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The Oregon Badlands Wilderness

May 17, 2011
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My first backpacking trip of the spring was to the austere and hauntingly lovely Oregon Badlands Wilderness. This protected patch of land, located just east of Bend, is among the newest wilderness areas in the state– it was created in 2009 when President Obama…

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Book Review: The Restless Northwest, by Hill Williams

February 7, 2011
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I found The Restless Northwest to be an enjoyable and easy-to-read distillation of the long and complex history of the how the Pacific Northwest came to be…

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5 More Extremes of Nature in the Pacific Northwest

December 12, 2010
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A little while ago, I wrote a post about 10 extremes of nature in the Pacific Northwest. I found another handful of superlatives that help make the Northwest a special place…

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