One night a couple from Colorado camped next to us who were vacationing by plane. They had travelled from Colorado to Yellowstone, then on to Hamilton, MT. It was in casual conversation with them that Donald mentioned he was envious of someone who had the ability to see so much geology from above. Well, they offered us both the opportunity to join them in seeing Bitterroot geology from above and next thing I knew, we were at the airport climbing into a Cessna. I took pictures like a madman during our 30 minute flight but I chose seven especially nice ones to put on this page.
I had to leave some airplane pieces in one photo to prove this really happened. To the left of the plane's support you see Blogett Canyon and to the right you see Mill Creek Canyon. This illustrates the angle at which the mountains dip into the valley. Remember, the shear zone also dips into the valley at the same angle as the mountain front. On our trip up the ridge above Mill Creek we hiked right along the edge of that dramatic cliff that gets higher from right to left. We started near the right side of the photo and topped out on the light colored bump near the center of the photo. As it happens, if you walk up the mountain front like we did, you are walking on or near the surface on which the sliding took place when the Sapphires slid east. The photo on the right is of Hamilton, a large town by Montana standards at 3,500 residents. You can see the Bitterroot River on the right.
On the right side of this photo you can see the three ridges we knew from below as the "three sisters." The Blodgett Fire started almost right below the airplane's location this picture 12 days after I took it.
I haven't been able to figure out which ridges and canyons are in the above two photos. We flew over dozens of amazing canyons on our flight.
This is a tiny lake below the summit of Mill Point, on the south side of Mill Creek. I saw recently on a forest service fire fighting map on a web page that this was a source lake for airborne water drops.
