Few 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 [...]
Posted tagged ‘Mount Hood’
Proposal: Baldwin Memorial Wayside
October 25, 2010Proposal: Cooper Springs Trail
September 19, 2010One of the memorable highlights along the Timberline Trail is the starkly beautiful section between Gnarl Ridge and Cloud Cap, high on the broad east shoulder of the mountain. Here, the trail crests its highest point, at 7,335 feet, as it traverses the tundra slopes of Cooper Spur more than a thousand feet above the [...]
20:1 Odds
August 31, 2010As part of their August 2010 feature on National Parks, Sunset Magazine gave a nod (of sorts) to the Mount Hood National Park Campaign! The surprise article explained a mysterious round of phone tag that I played with a Sunset writer in late July (though I never actually connected with her). As part of the [...]
It’s Just Another 12.6 Acres
August 15, 2010Mount Hood’s ski resorts continue their slow-motion assault on the mountain this summer with yet another parking lot expansion at the Meadows Resort. The Forest Service has not yet released the details beyond this “proposal” statement: “Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Resort Twilight Parking Lot. Developing a new parking area and bus maintenance facility just behind [...]
Hiroshima Rock Centennial (1910-2010)
July 17, 2010Today marks the centennial of a Japanese climbing expedition to the summit of Mount Hood on July 17, 1910. The achievement would probably be forgotten by now, except for the visitors carving a record of their ascent into a glacier-polished andesite boulder at the crest of Cooper Spur. The boulder is now informally known as [...]
Illuminating Mount Hood
July 7, 2010Visitors to Timberline Lodge cannot help but notice the huge monolith on the southwestern shoulder of Mount Hood parting the Reid and Zigzag glaciers. This 9,543 foot spire is Illumination Rock, and a signature feature on the mountain. What few visitors know is that the rock gained its name in the early days of mountaineering [...]
Stop Salting the Palmer Glacier!
May 25, 2010A recent article in Willamette Week by Adrienne So goes where The Oregonian and other media have not dared in the nearly 30 years since the controversial Palmer Lift opened the Palmer Glacier to year-round skiing. In her article, So asks the obvious question: is it really such a good idea to pour nearly a [...]
The Mount Hood Quarter
March 12, 2010Beginning this year, the new America the Beautiful Quarters program will release the first of 56 new United States quarter coins. The new coins feature national parks and other national sites in each state, the District of Columbia and U.S. Territories. Notably, Mount Hood is one of just two “national sites” in the new set [...]
Highway 26 Widening Postscript… and Requiem?
February 1, 2010As a postscript to the previous two-part article, I offer some final thoughts on the proposed widening of the Mount Hood Highway in the Laurel Hill area: First, the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) process used to gather public input on projects like those proposed for Laurel Hill is abysmal. Information on the web is [...]
Highway 26 Widening Projects – Part Two
January 9, 2010The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is set to begin construction of more than $27 million in road widening projects along the Mount Hood Highway in 2010 and 2011. These projects are supposed to improve safety along the segment of Highway 26 located east of Rhododendron, and along the Laurel Hill grade. In reality, they [...]
New Maps of Mount Hood and the Gorge
November 7, 2009Mount Hood and the Columbia River Gorge were in fine company earlier this year when the National Geographic Society released a pair of new maps in their Trails Illustrated series covering both areas. This map series is generally limited to national parks, so the few outstanding areas outside the National Park System (NPS) included in [...]
Tiny Timberline Survivors
October 29, 2009During the peak of summer in the high country around Mount Hood, hikers flock to the lush mountain meadows in places like Paradise Park, Cairn Basin, Elk Cove and Elk Meadows to take in the huge drifts of waist-deep wildflowers. Along the way, they usually pass through the cinder slopes and glacial moraines that seem [...]
The Mount Hood Lily
August 1, 2009Second only to our towering Pacific rhododendron (Rhododendron macrophylum) in pure spectacle, the striking white trumpets of the Mount Hood lily are unforgettable. These handsome lilies often grow to more than six feet in height with as many as 20 flowers, each up to 8 inches in length. Never heard of the Mount Hood lily? [...]
Where the heck is Tamarack Rock?
July 30, 2009You won’t find Tamarack Rock on any maps, though this rugged knoll is hidden in plain sight — just off the Surveyors Ridge Road (FR 17) on the east side of Mount Hood. The rock didn’t get much respect during the logging heyday of the late 1900s, with gravel spur roads wrapping almost entirely around [...]
New Glaciers on Mount Hood?
July 19, 2009It seems implausible, but climate change may be creating new glaciers on Mount Hood — but not in the usual way that glaciers are created. A close look at the retreating White River Glacier on the sunny south flank of Mount Hood reveals two stranded arms that are now separate glacier. As marked by (1) [...]
