Cascade alpine lakes

It's difficult to say Thank You when you're not sure who to thank. In my last post I introduced you to my book on Amazon called IN THE SHADOW OF BABYLON (http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Babylon-John-M-Schwartz/dp/146110713X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313419040&sr=1-1) This was a little over a week ago. This morning the book ranked 65,300 on Amazon's list of 750,000 titles. I know this may not seem like much but here's another way to look at it. This morning there were 685,000 authors who would have traded places with me! Because I can't identify those of you who have purchased the book, I'll thank all of you hoping, of course, that those who have not yet had time to get a copy will do so soon. It's available in print and on Kindle.

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I have lived and worked in many places both here and abroad. For much of my business life I have been fortunate to have the freedom to live and work from pretty much anywhere. To me (and Jill) there is no better place to spend the summer and fall than in Central Oregon... specifically the Bend-Sisters-Sunriver corridor.

This morning the sky was filled with smoke from four forest fires burning 50 miles north of Bend on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation. To escape the smoke we decided to head up into the Sisters Wilderness area (about 30 miles west of where we are parked in our RV) and take a hike to a series of alpine lakes in the Cascade mountains. We've done many hikes in the area but somehow we've missed this one. Imagine our delight when it turned out to be the best hike either of us had ever taken! I won't bore you writing about it... I'll let the photos make the case.

Island of wildflowers

Close to the tree line

Ancient Lava flow dams the stream

Late blooming lupines

 The trail follows Fall Creek
which runs down from the
Three Sisters Mountains
cluster including a mountain
called Broken Top. The
stream is filled with waterfalls (hence FALL creek) and the banks lined
                                                           with forest

Lots of falls

Giant trees line the trail

The destination Green Lake at the base of Brokentop Mountain