Shooting the Shooter Part Three - North and Middle Sister

This next set of images were taken during my third weekend back from Liberia.  We were surprised at how nice the weather still was (I just found out that this has been the driest year in recorded history for Oregon), the lack of rain and, most importantly, the lack of snow at higher elevations.  In discussing our photography options we decided to go into the Cascades and up the Old McKenzie Highway which is usually closed from the first major snowfall until July.

Our primary destination was Proxie Falls, a set of falls that had been on my “to hike to” list for many years and I’d just never gotten around to it.  I suspect that if Ann had taken a photo of me taking images at the falls we would have used that.  I have a couple from there worth showing, but you know we have to stick with the theme here.  Anyway, the falls were beautiful and we’ll definitely be heading there again 

Ann and I still hadn’t gotten our routine down in terms of packing so our hike to Proxie Falls wasn’t as long as it could have been (I’d forgotten to bring the guide book from the car with us and had forgotten that there is a side trail to yet another falls as part of the Proxie Falls loop - oops).  So instead of hiking back to the falls we missed, we decided to continue driving up the Old McKenzie Highway, first heading over to a lake, which the sun was washing beautifully across, and then onward until we hit the lava beds.

The Cascade Mountains are part of the ring of fire that circles the Pacific (remember Mount St. Helens?) so lava beds from these once active volcanoes aren’t uncommon.  With lava beds, sun-dried tree stumps, a beautiful blue sky and the South and Middle Sister all in sight, you can’t not stop to make a photograph, or two, or three.  So Ann and I did.

Glad we went when we did because you can’t get there now.  Not for another 6 months or so!