Description: This review is a continuation of my Stop #2: The Three Sisters review.
The Three Sisters themselves were just spectacular. Their mottled skin, alternating between orange and gray, depending on whether it had suffered much erosion lately, was a stark contrast from the valleys behind. It pains me to think that, because they have been formed completely by mountainside being eroded away, at some point in time they will not be there anymore—kind of like the collapsed Apostle.
There are plenty of different viewpoints from which to see the Three Sisters. There is, of course, the main Echo Point lookout, which is crowded with tourists from anywhere you can imagine, but also has the most informative signs with maps and history. There is a smaller lookout close by that offers pretty much the same view with slightly less people. When we were standing at Echo Point, we noticed small bodies moving in the distance—are those people underneath the Three Sisters? Having decided we had taken enough pictures (or really, James deciding this for me), we headed for the walkway to the Sisters.
This walkway leads along the side of a small cliff, and is pretty easy going until you reach the staircase. When we reached the top of the staircase, I felt like I was looking directly down at the people coming back up—meaning the staircase was entirely too steep. It wasn’t too bad going down, as long as you kept your balance and watched for misshapen or slippery stairs, which appeared quite often when the stairs became made out of rock rather than metal.
At the bottom of the stairs, or so we thought, were the Three Sisters. We were glad we made the trek, because you can actually sit underneath the first sister—there are a few benches underneath an overhang—and peer out over the valleys below, and up at the hordes of people unintentionally taking your photograph as they snap shots of the natural wonder.
We had the choice from there either to continue down the steep stairs to the valley floor, some distance away, or go back up towards Echo Point. We figured we had already gone down enough stairs, and that we would never make it back up if we went any farther down, so we chose Echo Point. On the way back, we found yet another lookout, on which there was only one other family. This offered a slightly more obstructed view of the sisters, being closer to them, but we still thought it merited a stop.
Beside this lookout was where we created our own lookout, by climbing over a log and onto the side of a cliff. I refused to get very close to the edge, knowing I would end up broken in the valley below, but James had fun dangling his legs over the side and attempting to scare me. Here, too, there was a brilliant view.
I couldn’t have asked for a better day or a better visit to the Three Sisters.
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