page_title: Blue Mountains (Pacific Northwest)
section_title: During westward expansion of the United States
hierarchical_section_title: Blue Mountains (Pacific Northwest) / History / During westward expansion of the United States
caption_attribution_description: English: Descending the Blue Mountains, from Eleven Years in the Rocky Mountains...
context_page_description: The Blue Mountains are a mountain range in the western United States, located largely in northeastern Oregon and stretching into southeastern Washington. The range has an area of about 15,000 square miles, stretching east and southeast of Pendleton, Oregon, to the Snake River along the Oregon-Idaho border. The Blue Mountains cover eight counties across two states; they are Union, Umatilla, Grant, Baker, and Wallowa counties in Oregon, and Walla Walla, Columbia and Garfield counties in Washington. They are home to the world's largest organism and fungal mycelial mat, the Armillaria ostoyae. The Blue Mountains were so named due to the color of the mountains when seen from a distance.
context_section_description: In the mid-1800s, the Blue Mountains were a formidable obstacle to settlers traveling on the Oregon Trail and were often the last mountain range American pioneers had to cross before either reaching southeast Washington near Walla Walla or passing down the Columbia River Gorge to the end of the Oregon Trail in the Willamette Valley near Oregon City.
caption: A party descending the Blue Mountains in their journey along the Oregon Trail. Drawing from Eleven years in the Rocky Mountains and a life on the frontier by Frances Fuller Victor (1877).
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