Michelle and Bjorn's roadtrip photo essay - Day 5

It was time to turn our attention to how we were going to get home. I knew I wanted to show Michelle the lava fields at Sisters and we both wanted to be back Friday night. We had two days to find our way home.

So we headed straight west and up to the lava fields.

When Jerry and I passed through in August we went East to West and never stopped at the eastern edge of the fields. Michelle and I made it our first stop.

At the edge:


A great view from some of the rocks and shale pushed to the edge of the lavaflow



I hiked along this edge of the lava fields for a bit to get some additional photos and to get closer to the actual edge


It's truly like something from another planet, with the odd plant trying to gain a foothold as the only life to be seen.


After a while it was time to hike back to the car and drive on. We pulled in at the observatory, build entirely out of lava rock. The climb up is pretty short and Michelle was not far behind


They build little cutouts to point out the peaks surrounding the lava fields

This day the sisters were hiding in the clouds and we never did get a good look.



Another view from the inside


At the top is a large cast disk to also point out the peaks


One more of Michelle


There are a couple of pockets of trees, basically islands in the original flow


We checked out some of the informational boards, but really, there isn't very much to say -- it's all dead.


One final set of photos, the eternal game of colour


... vs. black and white


After this we did stop once more, but I shot medium format film only and as per the previous post, that's not developed yet :)

It was amazing how tight the road felt in Michelle's small car, when compared to riding it on a motorbike. The descent was fun, but I was of course concerned about oncoming traffic. Unless you've driven the road it's hard to describe.

After a good lunch we went off to explore, got onto some small gravel roads I was unwilling to risk going further on and eventually decided to take the major highways to I-5 and to head north.

Some shopping and a late dinner and we had a fairly full day.

I'll have some final thoughts for the Day 6 post, but this is pretty much it for scenic photos. Hope you've enjoyed it.

Bjorn