Mountains: Rockies vs Cascades

Rockies
I love mountains.  I plan to hike "my" mountain next year.  Actually, I planned to hike it this year, but then I went to Oregon instead.

"My" mountain is Mount Timpanogos.  This is my view from the front yard:

Mount Timpanogos

And from the "back" (east) side of the mountain, on a very popular canyon road, taken in the fall:

East view of Mount Timpanogos from Alpine Loop

Elevation 11,749 ft
Prominence 5,269 ft
2nd Tallest peak in the Wasatch range after King's Peak, but the most popular one to climb.
Right in my back yard (yup, pretty much literally)

Timp's highest point
Big Baldy is the hill in the foreground left- looks so big because it's much closer.
Big baldy is 8,756 ft

I love the mountains and canyons of Utah County and I explore them often.  See this older post if you want to see labeled pictures of the canyons.

Geology of the Wasatch Mountains
The mountains are made of sedimentary rock mostly, including a great deal of limestone, which was formed when Utah was mostly a shallow inland sea.  Limestone is mostly calcium carbonate which is the substance in shells and other parts of sea organisms.

Take a look at those layers!  This was a rainy day and I've never seen the layers on Timp look so prominent

Continued dropping of the valley floor with the regular Wasatch Fault created this mountain range from the lithified marine deposits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_the_Rocky_Mountains
http://www.onlineutah.com/utahcountymountains.shtml

Cascades
The cascades are incredible mountains that are really volcanoes.  There are a number of awesome peaks in this range that extends from northern California into Canada, but here are some of those I saw in Oregon.

Mount Washington is a deeply eroded shield volcano, the main peak is a volcanic plug. Elevation 7,794 ft, prominence 2,554 ft.

Mount Washington - elevation 7,794 ft

Belknap Crater (6,877 ft) on left, Mount Washington on right

Three Sisters

Three Sisters (l to r) - Charity, Hope, Faith

North Sister "Faith" - elevation 10,085 ft, prominence 2,725 ft

• Oldest and most eroded of the 3
• Shield volcano
• Last erupted over 100,000 years ago
• Considered extinct

Middle Sister "Hope" - elevation 10,047 ft, prominence 1,127 ft

• Stratovolcano
• Last erupted 50,000 years ago
• Considered extinct

 South Sister "Charity" - elevation 10,358 ft, prominence 5,598 ft

• Youngest and tallest of the 3
• Stratovolcano atop a shield volcano
• Last erupted 2,000 years ago
• Has a summit crater holding a small lake called Teardrop Pool - highest lake in Oregon

3 Sisters with Broken Top to the left

Broken Top is an eroded, extinct stratovolcano- elevation 9,177 ft, prominence 2,175 ft.

The beautiful Crater Lake National Park

Crater Lake National Park

Crater Lake's elevation (of the surface of the water) is 6,178 ft
Lake depth is 1,148 ft - deepest lake in the US
Wizard Island is a cinder cone at elevation 6,932 ft

Wizard Island cinder cone in Crater Lake

Mount Scott is the highest peak at Crater Lake at elevation 8,926 ft.  It has what looks like its own crater, but this is actually a glacier-cut cirque.

Mount Scott, highest peak around Crater Lake

Geology of the Cascade Mountains
This awesome mountain range is formed by plate tectonics!  As the Juan de Fuca plate dives under the North American plate, that crust is destroyed by the heat of the inner layers of the earth.  That molten rock (magma), comes up to the surface creating a line of volcanoes parallel to the coast.

 The melting on the right where it rises to the surface is how the Cascades ^^ were formed

Plate tectonics of the cascades