The age of the microprocessor has ushered in a revolution in the fields of cartography and geosciences. After all, few could have imagined streaming Google Earth imagery over a worldwide web when the first air photos were being scanned and digitized in the 1980s. The latest innovation on the geo-data front promises still more detailed [...]
Posted tagged ‘Mount Hood’
New Lidar Maps of Mount Hood
December 26, 2011The Newton Clark Moraine
November 26, 2011Tucked on the remote east shoulder of Mount Hood is the Newton Clark Moraine, the largest glacial formation on the mountain, and one of its most prominent features. Yet this huge, snaking ridge remains one of Mount Hood’s least known and most mysterious landmarks. At over three miles in length, and rising as much as [...]
2012 Mount Hood National Park Calendar
October 30, 2011Each year at about this time I assemble the Mount Hood National Park Scenic Calendar. The proceeds are modest, but do help support the Mount Hood National Park Campaign website and related project expenses. The main purpose is simply to promote the project, and make the case for the campaign with pictures. I’ve published the [...]
Let’s Fix the Cooper Spur Trail
September 27, 2011The first hiking trails on Mount Hood were built in the late 1890s, radiating from the newly constructed Cloud Cap Inn on the mountain’s north side. The steep hike up the south Eliot Glacier moraine to Cooper Spur was perhaps the first trail, as it was part of the still-popular Cooper Spur route to the [...]
White River Buried Forest
September 18, 2011The summer of 2011 will be remembered as the year of the Dollar Lake Fire in the Mount Hood area, as much of the north side is still smoldering from a lightning-caused wildfire that ignited on August 26. Though a calamity to those who loved the verdant forests on Mount Hood’s northern slopes, the fire [...]
SOLVED: North Side Waterfall Mystery
August 28, 2011Fans of the classic 1975 edition of Jack Grauer’s “Mount Hood: A Complete History” have memorized the many rare photos and stories found only in this unique book. For waterfall hunters, the photo on page 226 (shown above) is particularly compelling. The 1890s image is titled “Wallalute Falls on Compass Creek”, and shows the tiny [...]
Proposal: Bald Butte Loop
July 26, 2011Each spring the parking lot at the Dog Mountain trailhead in the Columbia Gorge starts to look like Black Friday at a shopping mall: hundreds of hikers crowd the trail for the classic hike through steep meadows of blooming arrowleaf balsamroot. Who can blame them? The flower show is spectacular, even with the crowds. But [...]
Discovering Bald Mountain
April 13, 2011The country is filled with “Bald Mountains”, but for sheer scenic spectacle, few can compare to the Bald Mountain that rises just four miles away from the towering west face of Mount Hood. At one time, a fire lookout stood atop this Bald Mountain, and the view from the tower must have been the envy [...]
Close Call at White River Falls
March 29, 2011The magnificent desert falls on the White River survived a close brush with disaster this month, when a throwback proposal by Wasco County to divert the river as part of a new hydropower project was scrapped. Like so many hydro projects of decades passed, this one would have had “little impact”, according to proponents. Yet, [...]
Return of the Mountain Goat
March 21, 2011Along their return trip across the continent, on April 10, 1806, the Lewis and Clark expedition visited a small Indian village on what is now Bradford Island, in the heart of the Columbia River Gorge. Here, they traded for a beautiful white hide from what we now know as a Rocky Mountain Goat. Meriwether Lewis [...]
Proposal: Elk Cove to Pinnacle Ridge Connector
January 23, 2011This proposal calls for a new trail connector linking the historic Elk Cove Trail (No. 631) and little-used Pinnacle Ridge Trail (No. 630) on Mount Hood’s rugged north side. This new connector would create a new 9.3 mile hiking loop that could serve as a strenuous day trip for experienced hikers, or an easy overnighter [...]
Campaign Goes International!
December 11, 2010Today I received this wonderful street scene from Peder Bisbjerg, traveling in Quy Nhon, Vietnam (located about halfway between Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City). Wait a minute… something looks familiar… There it is! Mount Hood meets the beaches of Vietnam! Not a lot of volcanoes in Vietnam, proper, but they are just across [...]
Building the Timberline Trail
November 24, 2010For decades, hikers and backpackers have taken Mount Hood’s famous Timberline Trail for granted — and why not? It was one of the earliest alpine hiking trails in the American West, and seems to have evolved with the mountain itself. But the story of the trail is one of an original vision that has been [...]
Sunshine Rock
November 13, 2010Located in a deep canyon near Lost Lake, Sunshine Rock is a 700-foot monolith that would rival famous Beacon Rock in the Columbia Gorge, were you to set them side-by-side. The two rocks might even look a bit like twins: both feature walls of distinctive columnar basalt, and rise to a broad, fluted crest. Despite [...]
Proposal: Baldwin Memorial Wayside
October 25, 2010Few in the Hood River Valley would ever recognize the name “Gilhouley Road”, much less anyone from beyond the area. And yet, at the intersection of this obscure dirt road and the Mount Hood Loop Highway lies an imposing scene that is treasured by locals and tourists, alike: the first big look at Mount Hood [...]
