Very beautiful area of the country you live in, Joy. Of a different character than the area around here, but every bit as beautiful in its own way. The Appalachians are much softer and more subtle in their form, unlike the aerie crags of the Cascades, and it appears that you can almost always get a view from the top of your mountains. Our foothills in this area are so densely forested that half the time you can't even get a view of anything but more tree trunks from the summits.

I look at the photos in the gallery you linked us to, and I imagine I can smell the air. It smells...green.
Do you perchance do much hiking in the Appalachians?

Now, for the egghead stuff (no, I've never written a travelogue, although that's an idea):think

The Appalachians were much taller, long ago, than they are today. They are a very old range - much older than the Cascade Mountains of Washington State, where Mount Rainier resides. The entire extent of the Appalachian range is anywhere between 900 million and 200 million years old, depending upon where you are; for the last 200 million years, erosion has reduced them to half their original height, hence their modest height and gentle form. Much of the Cascade range we Northwesterners now know and love is anywhere between 37 million to 7 million years old (excluding older, basement rock), and virtually all of the volcanoes which are currently considered active, or having the potential to become active again, are MUCH younger than that. Rainier, despite it's obvious bulk, began forming only about half a million years ago. And Mount Baker, that conical giant (10,000 feet), 30 odd miles from my front door, is thought to be less than 30,000 years old, although it sits atop an ancestral volcano believed to be as old as Rainier.

When it comes to form, I personally think Mount Baker is nicer than Rainier, being more conical in shape. Much of Rainier's fame comes from its sheer massiveness; when you're up close to it, as in Puyallup, WA, it takes your breath away. Its potential to endanger tens of thousands of lives :eek in the event of an eruption also adds to the awe factor; "Volcano Evacuation Route" signs are all over the countryside down that way.


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My personal volcano (Mount Baker):





Very best,
Dean
Better to have loved and lost than to be married to a PSYCHO.