WALLA WALLA — It’s a stunning natural landmark known to many residents of south-central Washington, but it’s about to go international.
Located just south of Wallula Junction, the Twin Sisters basalt columns will be featured in an upcoming episode of “Great Nature,” a show broadcast by NHK, Japan’s equivalent of the BBC.
Photographers will capture shots later this month of the Twin Sisters, two craggy rock features that jut upward side-by-side from a hill along the Columbia River.
The shots will be included in an episode covering the Columbia’s iconic basalt landmarks and the extraordinary Missoula floods that carved them out at the end of the last ice age, said Mugi Morijiri, a production coordinator for Global Photo Associates USA, which has been contracted by NHK for the project.
The Twin Sisters is just one stop in a more than 10-day journey across Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana while Global Photo Associates USA gets the shots needed for the 90-minute episode, Morjiri said.
That episode is likely to air by the end of this year, though viewers outside of Japan will not be able to watch the broadcast, Morjiri noted. It is not immediately clear if the episode will later be uploaded online for on-demand viewing.
Remnants of a 15.5 million year-old lava flow, the columns are all that remained on that hilltop after the epic Missoula floods washed away the surrounding basalt, according to geologists.
Beyond its geological significance, the Twin Sisters are also spiritually significant to the Cayuse and Umatilla tribes.
According to local legend posted on a sign leading up to the Twin Sisters, the columns were originally two Cayuse sisters who were married to the trickster spirit Coyote and later transformed into stone. A third sister and wife to Coyote was instead turned into a cave downstream.
The formation has been known by a variety of names over the years, including the Two Captains after Lewis and Clark, Chimney Rocks, and Cayuse sisters. Then, in 1979, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names officially designated the formation as the Twin Sisters.
The Twin Sisters are easily accessible to hikers looking for a day-trip, with a roundtrip of less than a mile to the top and back.
