The Nine Sisters, a Chain of Ancient Volcanoes
Near Morro Bay, California
Look inland from Morro Bay and you will see a procession of steep, rounded hills stepping away toward San Luis Obispo. These are the Nine Sisters, sometimes called the morros, and they are the eroded roots of ancient volcanoes. Like Morro Rock itself, each one is a volcanic plug, the tough plug of hardened magma that once filled the throat of a vent.
When the softer rock around them wore away over millions of years, these hard cores were left standing alone. Morro Rock is the last sister, the one that stands out in the bay. Moving inland, the chain includes Black Hill at six hundred sixty five feet, Cerro Cabrillo, Hollister Peak, Cerro Romualdo, Chumash Peak, Bishop Peak at fifteen hundred fifty nine feet, and Cerro San Luis, ending at Islay Hill near San Luis Obispo.
Bishop Peak is the tallest of them all. The Franciscan friars gave them the Spanish name morros, meaning crown shaped hills. To the Chumash and Salinan peoples, several of these summits carried deep spiritual meaning.
Driving the highway between Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo, you are threading your way through a line of dead volcanoes tens of millions of years old, each one a stone survivor of a landscape that has otherwise vanished.
