Geo 365: March 28, Day 87: Pilot Butte

Pilot Butte is a cinder cone smack in the town of Bend. I'm not finding information on its age, but simply judging from the lack of dissection, on one hand, but the moderately well-developed soils and full vegetational colonization on the other, would lead me to guess this is Holocene, but at least several thousand years old. [Note: See second thoughts and semi-correction here] While the photos with which I'll fill out the rest of the week were taken August 20, this was taken the next day on our return from Newberry Volcano National Monument. We're on "new" Route 97, heading north, here. "Old" (or Business) 97 was the route I was accustomed to taking through Bend as an undergrad. The new four-lane expressway was started in the late 80's I think, and completed sometime in the early 90's. There's nothing wrong with Bend, but my destinations are almost always on the other side of it, wherever I am. So it's always felt like an obstacle to get through or around, and I never really learned the layout of the town itself. But as we checked into the Budget Inn, something clicked, and I asked the clerk whether, if we drove up old 97 a ways, we could find Pilot Butte. I was awfully glad I did: it was a very pleasant- and unexpected- end to our day.

Photo unmodified. August 21, 2011. FlashEarth Location.