Four Sisters

Managing a native grassland beloved for spring wildflowers

Named for four massive boulders that sit in a row near the top of the ridge, this conserved site outside The Dalles, Oregon is beloved for its stunning blooms of balsamroot and lupine in the spring, and views of both Mt. Hood and the Columbia River punctuated by the calls of Western Meadowlarks. Conserved by Columbia Land Trust in 2012, this 120-acre site is managed to foster functional native grassland and shrub-steppe habitat.

This is one of the easternmost places in our care, located in the arid Columbia Plateau where our conservation priorities include preserving ecological function of native grasslands and prairies, and reducing development and conversion of critical landscapes.

Four Sisters is home to a series of vernal pools that fill with water in the winter and spring and occasionally entice herds of elk down from where they usually graze at higher elevations in Mt. Hood National Forest.

In recent years our stewardship work has focused on the control of rush skeletonweed, an infamous invader of native grasslands.