In Washington state, there’s no more iconic alpine location than the Liberty Bell group. 50 million years ago a chamber of magma cooled slowly beneath the earth surface. As the magma cooled, mineral crystals of quartz (the white mineral) and feldspar (the dark mineral) forming the stunning granite peaks of the Cascade mountains.

The earth is composed of seven independently moving tectonic plates, that are moving on top the ductile molten layer of earth. These tectonic plates converge, diverge and slide past each other, changing the landscape around them.

The chamber of magma that forms the Liberty Bell group (the golden horn batholith) was formed when the pacific oceanic plate converged with the North American continental plate.