Cloud Cap Inn

Fire-free Mount Hood Wilderness?

/ Tom Kloster / 7 Comments

The ancient Whitebark pines on Gnarl Ridge have managed to dodge wildfires for centuries through their rugged isolation, but can they survive our wilderness campfires?

Fire season was off to an ominous start this year with the Rowena and Burdoin fires sweeping across hundreds of acres of oak and pine savannah in the Gorge, destroying several homes. Yet, these early fires were a bit of an anomaly. Thus far, at least.  We enjoyed a healthy, lingering snowpack in the Cascades this summer, and despite a late-August heat wave and the fires currently burning in sagebrush country east of the mountains, we’ve had a mostly cooler summer that seems more like 1980s than our overheated summers of today. 

I’ve pointed this out to a fair number of younger hikers on the trail this summer while crossing rejuvenated snowfields on the Timberline Trail in early August. Until sometime around 2000, when the effects of climate change seemed to be visibly escalating, this is what summers were like here: a three-month drought with a couple heat waves, to be sure, but mostly moderate temperatures and even a few wet summer storms to break up the dry spell. 

Our unexpected respite from extreme heat this year could also blunt the severity of our annual wildfire season, though it bears remembering that some of our most destructive firestorms have happened in September.

Not out of the woods with our fire season, just yet. The human-caused Riverside Fire started on September 8, 2020 and eventually burned 138,000 acres of the Clackamas River basin over the following weeks, much of the burn hot enough to create ghost forests where nothing survived. This scene looking into the Whale Creek basin is one of those places.

If we do make it past this Labor Day weekend without catastrophic fires in the Cascades – the five-year anniversary of the catastrophic fires that swept through in 2020 — odds are good that we will have enjoyed an unearned break this year in an otherwise non-stop era of major wildland fires. The emphasis should be on unearned, however, as we’re not making nearly enough progress in achieving a sustainable balance of healthy, beneficial fires in our forests. 

Instead, we’ve catapulted from a century of unhealthy fire suppression and unsustainable forestry into the unhappy payback: a modern era of destructive, catastrophic fires fueled by the combined effects of fire suppression and overcrowded clearcut plantations in a rapidly warming climate. Add in a climate-denying administration in Washington DC that seems bent on somehow turning our collective clock back to 1955, and we’re losing ground fast on what otherwise could be a manageable crisis.

So, yes. There’s plenty of room for frustration and discouragement with the current state of affairs. But there are also encouraging signs that a return to more enlightened times has already begun, and the pendulum is beginning to swing toward science sustainability, once again. With that in mind, and in the spirit of “planning for good times during the bad”, this piece focuses on simple actions that we could take locally to help slow some of the momentum of a wildland fire cycle that is burning our forests faster than they can recover. 

“We have met the enemy….”

You would be hard-pressed to find anyone under the age of 40 who knows what the “Sunday funnies” is (or was), much less Walt Kelly’s wise possum named Pogo. On the first Earth Day in 1970, Kelly produced a poster with the now-famous “we have met the enemy and he is us” strip, a play on a lesser-known military quote dating back to the War of 1812. Pogo’s version resonated, and Walt Kelly repeated it in this strip published on the second Earth Day, in 1971:

Pogo was right…

We’ve made real progress on environmental pollution since then, but Pogo’s observation could easily apply to our current wildfire crisis. Here’s a stunning statistic: research from the U.S. Forest Service in 2020 estimated that nearly 85 percent of wildland fires are caused by humans! That’s obviously an unacceptable number. The list of human causes? Campfires and debris burning are at the top of the list, followed by sparks from heavy equipment, fireworks and discarded cigarettes (arson is surprisingly high on the list – something to research for a future article?)

Campfires are the overwhelming human cause of wildfires

On our public lands, debris burning (as in logging slash) and sparks from heavy equipment mostly fall into the realm of logging and road construction, off-road vehicles and gas chainsaws used for firewood gathering.  If you narrow the focus to human-caused fires that begin in our protected wilderness and backcountry areas, the list becomes much shorter: campfires, discarded cigarettes and (rarely) fireworks.

Narrowing a bit further to something we can tackle right here in WyEast Country, this article will focus on campfires within the protected Mount Hood Wilderness, and the surprising lack of restrictions on them. Few even know there are restrictions, but if someone were inclined to look it up, the list of places where campfires are prohibited on Mount Hood is puzzling, at best. Here’s the complete regulation:

Mount Hood Wilderness regulations on campfires (USFS)

First, some context: TKO’s Wilderness Ambassadors are counting in excess of 300 people heading to Paradise Park on the Timberline Trail each day on summer weekends this year – and that’s just one of the gateway points into the wilderness. Even if you assume that some meaningful share of the tens of thousands who enter the Mount Hood Wilderness are aware of campfire restrictions, these rules still seem random and confusing. 

How would the average person know how far “500 feet from the McNeil Point Shelter”, or a “half-mile from Burnt Lake” is? What’s a “tree-covered island” versus a grove of trees at Elk Cove and Elk Meadows? The last rule is especially puzzling, though it seems to describe a near-total ban at Paradise Park. Add in the ever-shrinking number of Forest Service rangers available to patrol the Mount Hood Wilderness, and it’s hard to believe these restrictions are having any real impact as written, however well-intended. 

Making the case: Protecting the wilderness experience

Though seemingly random, the places on Mount Hood called out in the campfire ban is instructive. These are all heavily-visited places where the increased wildlife risk of campfires is compounded by a degraded wilderness experience. It’s a compelling argument that anyone who has visited these places over time can testify to, as the human impacts are all-too apparent in each of the spots listed – and getting worse.

Once the cutting starts, it’s hard to stop. This butchered Whitebark pine had the misfortune of taking root near the Cooper Spur Shelter, perhaps before shelter and Timberline Trail even existed. It was still living as recently as 2020 (when these fresh cuts had been made), even as novice hikers continued hacking it apart for firewood too green to even burn

That’s why impacts on the human experience are a great starting point in making the case for a more effective, comprehensive campfire ban within the Mount Hood Wilderness. After all, much of the wilderness is very heavily visited, and many other popular spots face the same pressures as those few included in the current campfire ban. If visible impact from heavy use is the criterion, the Forest Service has simply lagged behind in adding to this list.

So, where to start in expanding the list? How about the entirety of Elk Cove and Elk Meadows, not simply the “tree islands”? And what about Cairn Basin, Eden Park and WyEast Basin? Or the rest of the Timberline Trail corridor for that matter? If you were to add every spot along the trail where campsites overflow with backpackers each summer, the dots on the map would quickly merge, making the case for a total ban. It’s simply too complex to describe or enforce a nuanced campfire ban with today’s widespread visitor pressure across so much of the Mount Hood Wilderness. Everything inside the wilderness boundary deserves this protection.

Making the case: A rogue’s gallery of wilderness campfires

I’ve lost track of how many ill-conceived campfire rings that I’ve decommissioned within the Mount Hood Wilderness over the years, but it is an ongoing and increasingly frustrating task. Most of these were not strictly banned under the Forest Service restrictions described above, but they very clearly violated basic “leave no trace” ethics. Worse, they were typically left smoldering, almost always because they had been built in a place too far from a water source to be safely extinguished. So, the campers simply walked away, leaving the seeds for a human-caused wilderness fire to chance. This rogue’s gallery is a sampler of what we are up against:

Not even a fire ring here, just a campfire built on top of the underbrush and forest duff layer along the Newton Creek Trail. It’s dumb luck this fire didn’t spread – likely due to fortuitous wet weather arriving that fall. Note the half-burned limbs left in the pit – how long did they smolder before the rains put this fire out?

This fire had been built on top of Bald Mountain, more than a mile from the nearest water source. It is typical of new campfires in the Mount Hood Wilderness. Lacking a saw, campers simply burned the ends of uncut logs and limbs, often several feet in length. With no fire ring, even the small limbs are spilling out of the campfire, in effect creating lit fuses for this fire to spread to the dry forest duff in all directions – as it already had when I took to photo. The half-burned stump adds to the risk, as it could smolder for days without being properly extinguished. 

Another new firepit that had been recently built on a dry ridge top on the east side of the mountain, more than a mile from any water source. It was left smoldering, along with burned trash and (circled) cigarette butts that weren’t even dropped into the fire pit – checking two boxes for this fire on the list of most common causes

Amid the half-burned wood and charred foil, fire has a small orange flag you might have seen in heavily used fire pits during fire season…

…upon closer inspection, they turn out to be temporary bans put in effect during extreme fire risk. Placing these requires intensive wilderness staff capacity, though, and with no clear penalty identified for violators, are they even be heeded?

As some of these detailed captions show, new fire rings usually betray their builders. Almost aways, they contain burned foil, cans and melted plastic that a seasoned, knowledgeable backcountry visitor would never leave behind. Half-burned (and often green) firewood is the other giveaway, usually chopped with a hatchet that few experienced hikers would carry. They are also typically built on top of the flammable forest duff layer, instead of an area cleared to bare, mineral soil.

Smoldering, abandoned campfires don’t always put out a lot of smoke, even when they’re still very hot. This video is from a fire left burning in the Badger Creek Wilderness in the middle of August, far from any water source. Doubly frustrating was using much of my water supply on that hot day to put out a careless campfire…

The next photo set in this rogue’s gallery is a case study of the historic Cooper Spur stone shelter on the Timberline Trail, where misguided campfires are a recurring problem. The shelter draws regular overnight campers who, in turn, have built several rock wall windbreaks around tent sites. Not exactly “no trace”, but also not unusual on the mountain. In this case, they must also be viewed in the context of being next to a man-made stone shelter. The hand of man prominent here, however rustic.

Camping among the rocks at the Cooper Spur shelter has become increasingly common in recent years, thanks in large part to social media, and helping to drive the increase in campfires here

However, there is no water source anywhere near the shelter, so it’s not an ideal camping spot. It’s an even worse place to build campfires. Most campers at the shelter do abide by this obvious ethic, but the few who don’t leave a permanent record of their visit for all who follow in this very popular place. That’s because, beyond the lack of water to reasonably extinguish a fire, there’s also a lack of firewood… except for the federally-listed, threatened Whitebark pines that cling to life here, at nearly 7,000 feet elevation.

I’ve decommissioned many campfires here since unofficially adopting some trails in the area nearly 25 years ago. All of these campfires were perfectly legal under the current Forest Service rules, but also completelyunethical from a “leave no trace” perspective. They also fail simple common sense, given the obvious lack of a nearby water source to put them out. 

To put a face on this ongoing struggle, here are some of the rogue campfires that I’ve decommissioned at the Cooper Spur shelter in recent years:

This fire ring has been rebuilt against a boulder, directly in front of the shelter – a favorite location for the campfire builders

A closer look at the 2014 fire ring. The boulder is charred from many fires built here, but the rest of this ring was new, as you can see by the mostly uncharred, smaller rocks

Fuel piled next to the 2014 fire ring includes green limbs pulled from a nearby Whitebark pine, typical signs of a novice

In the intervening years since these photos were taken in 2014, I’ve disassembled and decommissioned this fire ring repeatedly, as the charred boulder seems to attract ever more campfire building at this spot. However, this year things seemed to escalate sharply. This was the scene in late July:

Three campfires – within a few feet of one another? The fire ring on the far left was built in the middle of the trail, the one below on the left was built (once again) against the same boulder shown in the 2014 photos and the fire pit in the lower right was also new – the first in this spot. A large stack of Whitebark Pine limbs, both dead and living, are piled over on the right

A closer look at the new ring built in the middle of the trail shows half-burned Whitebark pine limbs and an attempt to extinguish the fire by piling rocks on top.

A closer look at the new ring shows the rock source to be the recently collapsed corner of the Cooper Spur Shelter – those are mortar traces attached to the rock in this photo. Pure vandalism to use these rocks before they could be to repair the shelter, of course

Decommissioning all three of these fire rings at the Cooper Spur shelter meant carrying at least a dozen gallon-size ziplock bags of (cold) ashes to dump in a discrete spot, moving all of the visibly charred rocks from the area and covering up what was left with a light dusting of loose gravel. However, the char marks left on the large boulder in this newest fire location will be there for many years to come, likely encouraging more fires here so long as they are legal.

This was among the charred Whitebark pine logs scattered from the three fires, apparently in an attempt to put the fire out? This log was cut with a hatchet, another telltale sign of a novice camper

What’s left of this Whitebark pine near the three new fire pits at the shelter shows signs of limbs being sawed, chopped or simply broken off. The stumps still have their bark, so it’s unclear if this was a living tree when it was targeted for firewood

While it has been a frustrating rinse-and-repeat cycle to continually undo these fire rings, it’s also informative. They point to wilderness visitors who require very simple, understandable and enforceable regulations. Even if the area around the shelter were added to the current list of banned places on the Forest Service list, the campfires would almost certainly continue, given the lack of awareness of where fires are prohibited in the wilderness.

Making the case: Current rules aren’t working

In researching this article, I spoke to several seasoned hikers who have been visiting the Mount Hood Wilderness for many years. Even among this veteran cohort there was tremendous confusion and misinformation about the restrictions that do exist, or even where to find them. Some were adamant that campfires were already banned “above the Timberline Trail”, while others believed the ban was “above the timberline”. None could name all of the place-specific bans described in the actual policy, and most could only name one or two. This level of misinformation among the most experienced hikers bodes poorly for the thousands of less-savvy visitors to the wilderness each year might know.

Today’s wilderness hikers on Mount Hood rely more on social media and third-party phone apps for their trail information than on official web content from public agencies, making it increasingly challenging to communicate rules and restrictions

The lack of awareness and understanding of the existing campfire ban is easy to diagnose. First, the official Mount Hood National Forest website is labyrinth, and it’s especially tough to navigate if you’re looking for recreation information. When I Googled “Mount Hood Wilderness”, only the unhelpful Mount Hood National Forest home page and generic “recreation” page showed up in the top 20 search results. Both are dead-ends.

The crucial link for wilderness information (including campfire regulations) is found elsewhere on the website, on a page describing all of the wilderness areas within the national forest – a page Google did not find with a search for “Mount Hood Wilderness.” From this page, the link to information on regulations for the Mount Hood Wilderness is buried in a text blurb that contains a link to this external website describing the campfire policy. 

Even a specific Google search for “Mount Hood Wilderness Regulations” takes you to the generic wilderness page for all wilderness areas, where you would still need to track down the buried link to the external page that actually lists the regulations. Few will ever find this information, unfortunately – including Google’s search engine. Google’s AI-powered search provided an even more confusing result, reporting a complete ban on wilderness campfires (!) followed by a partial mention of the actual policy (only for McNeil Point and Ramona Falls):

Google AI not so intelligent when it comes to finding USFS regulations…

So, the internet isn’t much help in tracking down the existing campfire regulations. However, the current ban is clearly described at wilderness trailheads around Mount Hood – if you look closely – along with general guidelines on wilderness ethics, including no-trace ethics campfires.

These are the trailhead signs at the Cloud Cap trailhead, the entry point for the Cooper Spur Shelter, and the standard signboard format for most wilderness trailheads on Mount Hood:

There’s a lot of information at Mount Hood’s wilderness access points. Look closely at this sign at the Cloud Cap trailhead and you might find the limited restrictions on campfires (circled)…

…and a closer view of the campfire restrictions from the above wilderness trailhead sign. The wording here is simplified from the official regulations, yet still quite nuanced for visitors unfamiliar with the wilderness

A second sign at the Cloud Cap wilderness trailhead provides still more information for visitors. The two arrows point to additional info on campfires…

…this enlarged view of the inset on the upper right calls for “minimizing” (highlight added) campfire impacts under the Leave No Trace (LNT) principles…

…and the inset on the left side of the second trailhead sign lists special rules for wilderness, including “cutting or otherwise damaging timber, tree or other forest product” (highlight added)

The current, limited campfire ban is also posted on the back of required wilderness permits, which are required at the Mount Hood Wilderness entry points (except this year, unfortunately, due to Forest Service staff cuts):

There it is! The red arrow points to the Mount Hood Wilderness regulations printed in full on the back of the permit

A closer look at the permit shows a nearly complete version of the existing, limited campfire ban within the Mount Hood Wilderness, albeit slightly simplified from the online, official version

So, the regulations are certainly available enough where it matters – at the trailhead. But the fact that so few know or understand them suggests they aren’t really being read by wilderness visitors – whether on the entry signboards or on the back of permits. That’s likely a case of information overload (there is a lot to read on these signs) and human nature (does anyone really read instructions before assembly..?)  Add the complexity of the regulation, and it translates into a policy that is not only too limited in its geographic scope, but also in its effective communication to wilderness visitors.

Making the case: Protecting human life and property

Do the risks and impacts that campfires present at the Cooper Spur Shelter and elsewhere in the Mount Hood Wilderness warrant a total ban on campfires? Thirty or forty years ago, my answer would have been “no”. But the current state of our forests and changing climate doesn’t leave us the luxury to be romantic or sentimental about campfires.

Cloud Cap Inn covered in red fire retardant during the Gnarl Fire in 2008. This historic, priceless 1889 gem narrowly survived the event (USFS)

Cloud Cap area transforming into a massive ghost forest of bleached snags in 2010, two years after the Gnarl Fire

We’ve seen a string of three major fires in the Mount Hood Wilderness in recent years that have completely altered the forests on the north and east slopes of the mountain: the Bluegrass Fire (2006), Gnarl Fire (2008) the Dollar Lake Fire (2011) all burned hot across thousands of acres of subalpine Noble fir, Mountain hemlock and Western larch at an unsustainable pace, leaving large expanses of ghost forest that are only beginning to regenerate today. 

None of these fires were human-caused, surprisingly. But there’s little comfort to be found there, given the number of people who visit the wilderness each year – and the number unattended, smoldering campfires they leave behind.  

It’s also only a matter of time before similar wildfires return to the south and west sides of the mountain, where a century of fire suppression has left these forests primed for a major fire. And the risk to property and human life on the south side of the mountain is far more significant.  Early photos like those below show the extent of the most recent fires to rage through today’s Government Camp area in the decades before the completion of the Mount Hood Loop Highway in the 1920s, and the subsequent flood of ski resorts, Forest Service cabin leases and homes on private land that followed.

This view of the Government Camp area from Multorpor Fen before much development had occurred on the mountain. The arrows point to the ghost forests that marked widespread burns across what are now heavily developed ski resorts and private homes on Mount Hood’s south flank. After more than a century since these fires burned through, the south side of the mountain is primed for a major wildfire

While the surge in recent wildfires on Mount Hood has focused on the east and north sides of the mountain, the west and south sides were the main focus of wildfires in the early 1900s. This view is of Mirror Lake in about 1900, when much of the area south of today’s US 26 had burned in the Kinzel fire

This later view of Mirror Lake from the 1920s shows little forest recovery – and the beginning of what is now more than a century of camping — and campfires

The risk to human life and property only grows as you move to the Zigzag Mountain arm of the wilderness. Zigzag Mountain comprises a complex of forested ridges and peaks that extends ten miles west from Paradise Park on Mount Hood to the community of Zigzag, where the Zigzag and Sandy River valleys converge. Zigzag Mountain and much of the surrounding area burned repeatedly in the early 1900s, long before there were thousands of people living in forest homes along both rivers and scores of businesses had located along this section of the Mount Hood Loop Highway.

The view from Devils Peaks in the 1930s looked much different than today. The peak, itself, had recently been burned over in the Kinzel and Sherar fires, while the area north along Zigzag Mountain was also burned in a series of very large fires in 1904 and 1910 – including the Burnt Lake Fire

[click here for a large version of the Zigzag Mountain infographic]

While it is inevitable that wildfires will someday sweep through these areas again, igniting one with an unattended, smoldering wilderness campfire doesn’t have to be the cause. And while the Zigzag Mountain portion of the Mount Hood Wilderness is less busy with visitors, the human and property risks from wilderness campfires here are far greater because of the proximity to developed areas immediately adjacent to the wilderness. 

Making the case: Protecting the Whitebarks

Protecting human life and property is deservedly the driver in wildfire management, but on Mount Hood, the impact of wilderness campfires extends to our threatened Whitebark pines. I described both their significance as a keystone species and plight in this article several years ago. These are trees worth protecting. 

Their ability to thrive in extreme, high elevation environments is part of their secret to dodging forest fires. The ancient groves of Whitebark on the mountain are often so isolated and scattered in their alpine setting that fires racing through the more continuous subalpine forests far below have repeatedly missed them simply because they were out of reach from the flames.

This advantage was borne out again with the recent fires on the east and north sides of the mountain, where the flames seemed to die out as they reached the tree line, well short of many of the ancient Whitebark groves. Their remote habitat is not out of our reach, however — or the impact of our campfires. 

This unlucky Whitebark pine has been harvested down to a stump for firewood at the Cooper Spur Shelter

The campfire threat to Whitebarks comes from being hacked apart for scarce firewood this far above the tree line. However, Mountain hemlock and other subalpine species are continuing to spread upward in elevation in our warming climate, infiltrating the once isolated Whitebark Pine groves, and thus increasing their exposure to wildfire.

Mature limbs from Whitebark pine in a large fire pit on the summit of Lookout Mountain, in the Badger Creek Wilderness

There is also an important aesthetic argument for caring about our Whitebarks. While you can’t place a dollar value on the visual and emotional impact of seeing a massive, ancient Whitebark pine in the wild, for most of us it is an awe-inspiring sight. Their contorted shape and especially their bleached bones tell a story of remarkable survival – but they can also provide senseless firewood to a few campers who don’t know any better. 

These ancient Whitebark pine skeletons are as beautiful and dramatic as they are vulnerable: the fire pit in the previous image is just a few yards beyond this grove

Beyond our human impact on these trees, Whitebark pine are experiencing a massive die-off across the West from a invasive diseases, insect infestations and worsening drought episodes driven by climate change. This has led them to be federally listed as a threatened species. Given their plight and importance, Whitebark pine may be the best reason for a total campfire ban in the Mount Hood Wilderness.

Whitebark pine along the Timberline Trail selected for seed harvesting in a Forest Service project to help save the species

Seed collection bags on one of Mount Hood’s selected Whitebark pines for genetic research

Since the 1990s, scientists at Mount Hood National Forest have been part of the national recovery effort for Whitebarks, where seeds are being collected from disease resistant trees for propagation to help replace groves where widespread die-offs have occurred in recent years. For more information on this effort, check out the Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation, a leader in the effort to rescue this unique species.

All of these arguments – the threats to our remaining forests, to human life and property and to the Whitebarks — bring me to the conclusion that now is the time for a complete ban on campfires within the Mount Hood Wilderness. No exceptions. Just a simple, understandable and permanent ban.

Making the case: How it’s done elsewhere

The Park Service bans all wilderness fires within Mount Rainier National Park, a model for Mount Hood (NPS)

No doubt the Forest Service would be wary of doing this, but there is already precedent within our national parks. Mount Rainier National Park bans campfires in all backcountry areas, the equivalent of wilderness there. Many western national parks have complete bans seasonally every summer – including in their campgrounds – often beginning as early as late May or early June. These include North Cascades, Olympic, Crater Lake and Mount Rainier national parks in the Northwest, and several other national parks across the country.

Wilderness campfires are completely banned at Rocky Mountain National Park (NPS)

Kings Canyon National Park has a limited prohibition, banning campfires only in alpine areas above 10,000 feet – an abstract metric that would be unlikely to register with newbie hikers most prone to building campfires in these areas (NPS)

Beyond the goal of simply reducing the risk of human-caused fires, the simplicity of complete campfire bans helps compensate for the inevitable lack of enforcement capacity in wilderness areas, whether in national parks or forests. Unattended or dangerously built campfires aren’t there because people want to start a wildland fire, they’re simple a result of ignorance of the risks they present. 

The Park Service approach is a simple, direct, teachable way to serve both outcomes – to prevent the risk of human caused fire, and to educate the public on the reality of the risk. A total ban is at least something that can be understood and thus has a chance of being reasonably self-enforced.

Making the case: Taming our inner caveman…

Heat, light and cooking, all in one. We do seem to retain a primal connection to fire (…that looks to be one of my ancestors on the left, by the way – holding a very large marshmallow stick…)

There’s an undeniable romance with campfires that gives pause to land managers like the Forest Service when it comes to pre-emptively regulating them. Yet, human-caused catastrophic wildfires in WyEast Country in recent years in places like the Columbia River Gorge in 2017 (infamously caused by teenagers with fireworks) and the massive Clackamas Riverside Fire in 2020 (apparently caused by a campfire) have begun to change that posture, albeit very gradually.

For the past few decades, the focus of culture change with wildfire has been on a better public understanding of the benefits and necessity of fire in our forest. It’s an essential piece of changing our attitudes, especially since prescribed burns continue to be controversial — despite their proven value. However, letting go of campfires as a ritualistic part of the outdoor experience has not been directly confronted by the Forest Service – yet. 

The mythology of the American West in the 1800s continues to be another part of our romance with campfires. These cowboys are preparing their morning Double Caramel Frappuccino with freshly baked Petite Vanilla Bean scones…

The utilitarian purpose of campfires for cooking is long gone. For wilderness backpackers, alternatives to a wood fire for cooking came in the early 1950s, when compact gas and alcohol stoves were first developed, based on portable military stoves. Today, the advantage of stoves for their simplicity, ease of use and certainty for cooking has made them standard practice for backpackers. And while it’s true that you can’t roast marshmallows or hot dogs over a portable gas stove, that’s what our developed campgrounds offer.

It is true that a fire can be a life-saving source of heat in a wilderness emergency, but so can proper clothing and shelter that are among the 10 essentials that every hiker should carry. And a rare emergency survival fire that might be warranted still represents a fraction of the impact and risk that not having any limit on campfires represents. 

Our modern-day connection of campfires to the camping tradition began with the arrival of the automobile and developed roads into our public lands in the 1920s. Though early adopters hauled everything for their campsite in their Model T, developed public campgrounds with picnic tables and formal campfire pits soon followed. Campfires in developed campgrounds today are rarely the source of wildfires today, so they continue to provide a safe solution for campers looking for that S’mores experience

In the end, the most personally compelling case for a ban in our time may be the environmental impacts and risk of wildfires that campfires bring. People head for the wilderness to get away from the human-impacted world, and the despair and sense of loss that so many have shared from our recent, catastrophic fires in the Gorge and on Mount Hood underscore just how personal the connection to wilderness is. That’s a winning argument for a ban that most would understand. 

Wilderness is special, and this is where a broader understanding of the ethics of wilderness campfires could begin. What not begin growing that awareness here on Mount Hood? 

Making it Happen…

The good news is that a national forest supervisor can make this happen with the stroke of a pen, as these policies are made at the local level. The most direct approach would begin with signage at Mount Hood’s wilderness trailheads, with both regulatory and interpretive messages. For those who take the time to read the signboards (and we salute you!), the messages already posted could be adapted to make the interpretive case for a campfire ban. 

However, if the goal is to get the message across to the majority of visitors, a blunt, direct and unavoidable approach is warranted. Like this sign – which, for the record, is not a real Forest Service sign (yet):

Keep it simple and direct. To ensure visibility, a sign like this should be posted away from the information overload of the main signboards and directly below the wilderness boundary markers that that are typically the last sign a hiker passes when entering the wilderness. Again, this example is from Cloud Cap, where you can see the wilderness marker in the distance, just up the trail:

Make the campfire ban (and associated fine) the last thing hikers see as they enter the wilderness, where it might just catch their attention…

To reinforce this very direct approach, the same message could be added to the front of the wilderness permits to better catch the eye of those of us (ahem) who are clearly not reading the back of the form:

…and make it the first thing they see when they complete their wilderness permit

Where would this ban apply? Everywhere inside the Mount Hood Wilderness boundary shown below. The wilderness has been expanded several times since the “Mount Hood Primitive Area” was first designated as wilderness in 1964. This is the current boundary where the campfire ban would apply – and including a ban icon on maps like this could be still another helpful reminder for visitors:

The boundary of the Mount Hood Wilderness where the campfire ban should be enacted

[click here for larger view of the map]

While I’ve highlighted what most consider to be the Mount Hood Wilderness on this map, several nearby wilderness areas have been created or expanded since the 1980s, including the Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness and Badger Creek Wilderness, as well as smaller pocket-wilderness additions at places like Twin Lakes and Tom Dick and Harry Mountain. Should these areas be included in the campfire ban, too? 

My answer is no, at least for now. That’s because these areas are mostly less visited and – with the exception of the summit of Lookout Mountain in the Badger Creek Wilderness — don’t have a Whitebark pine population that could be impacted by wilderness campfires. Over the longer term? Yes, these areas should also be included, as we continue to grapple with the wildfire crisis that is unfolding in our forests.

Why it matters…

Ancient Whitebark pine just off the Timberline Trail on Gnarl Ridge

I’ll close with a photo of one of my favorite Whitebark pine ancients (above). It has likely been growing in this sandy flat near the crest of Gnarl Ridge for at least a couple centuries. And it therefore likely witnessed multiple eruptions of smoke and ash from Mount Hood in the late 1700s as a young tree, the last major eruptive period on the mountain.

This old survivor was just getting established here when Lewis and Clark opened the floodgates to white settlement, and thus far it has survived our arrival in the intervening 200 years. Because of its remote home on the mountain, it also survived the Gnarl Fire in 2008, and very likely other wildfires on Mount Hood’s east slope over the centuries. So far, it has also survived the bug and disease infestations attacking our Whitebark pine forests.

Constant sculpting of this ancient Whitebark pine on Gnarl Ridge from blowing sand and ice crystals prevents the it from oxidizing to grey before it is sanded away, continually revealing the underlying color of the wood

This old tree is also about 200 feet from a group of tent sites along the Timberline Trail. What it may not escape is some camper snapping off its ancient, gnarled limbs for firewood — or worse, a spot wildfire caused by an unattended campfire left burning here for lack of a nearby water source on this windy, exposed alpine ridge.

For me, helping these threatened survivors live another century so that future generations might see and be inspired by them is perhaps the reason of all for finally putting an end to our wilderness campfires.

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Tom Kloster • August 2025

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Postscript: I’ve noted this in recent articles, but it bears repeating: this piece is written at a time when the Forest Service, National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management are under siege from a hostile administration in an unprecedented, orchestrated and blatantly corrupt attack on our public lands. My intent is certainly not to pile on at a time when our public workers at these agencies need our support and respect. 

However, I also accept the unfortunate reality that it will take many years to restore these organizations. In the meantime, we will need new approaches to protecting our public lands until we eventually rebuild the agencies charged with their management.  This article is written in that spirit and in deep support for our public lands agencies.

20 years of change on Cooper Spur… and the future?

/ Tom Kloster / 10 Comments

Workers cutting beams from solid pine trunks for the new Cloud Cap Inn during the summer of 1888. The (then) surging Eliot glacier loomed just beyond Cloud Cap in those early days (Author’s note: this is a modified historical image that I have colorized to bring the sense of the distant past a bit closer to our present-day world)

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When the builders of Cloud Cap Inn began construction in earnest in early summer 1889, the backdrop for Mount Hood’s first mountain lodge was radically different than today. The Northern Hemisphere was experiencing the final decades of a brief, still unexplained cooling period known as the Little Ice Age that stretched from the 1500s through the 1800s. 

The cooling was modest, but enough to surge the Eliot Glacier down to the tree line, nearly filling the deep trough between the high lateral moraines that were created in the last true ice age, thousands of years prior. The debris-covered terminus (or snout) of the Eliot Glacier was in plain view from Cloud Cap, directly behind the workers on the left side of the photo, above. It was formidable wall of glacial ice and rock rising nearly 300 feet above the valley floor.

Early photo views of the Eliot Glacier’s terminus shows the river of ice already receding between the 1890s and 1920s

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The Little Ice Age faded in the 20th Century, and as the photo pair above shows, the Eliot Glacier was already receding from its recent surge by the 1920s. Today, the Eliot Glacier has retreated about a half mile from its terminus in 1889, and lost as much as half its depth to our warming climate. 

The following photo pair shows the dramatic change from 1920 to 2020. The change in the glacier’s thickness can be seen by (A) the exposed cliffs below Cooper Spur were carved into a vertical wall by the glacier at its peak. The glacier’s terminus (B) has receded dramatically over the past century, revealing the high moraines we now see rising above the Eliot Branch. A more subtle change (C) are the alpine forests gradually moving up the mountain as summer snowpacks diminish.

Another, more detailed 1920 view of the Eliot Glacier’s terminus compared to the same view in 2020 shows the radical change over the past century

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For much of the past century, these changes were gradual enough that only a few scientists and mountain climbers noticed the ongoing change. But since the turn of the millennium the pace of change has accelerated to an alarming rate as our climate warms.

This article documents this most recent period of change, over the two decades that span from 2002 to 2022, including how the landscape on the mountain, itself, as changed. The article focuses on the area around Cloud Cap and the Eliot Glacier, as viewed from the Cooper Spur trail, as this corner of the mountain has seen some of the most volatile change.

Why 2002 as a starting point? That answer has to do with technology, not climate change. That was the year that I began shooting with a digital camera. For someone who learned photography with a film camera (including plenty of spent time in the darkroom in the 1980s) the age of digital has been a revelation. Film and print paper was expensive, and while I have a lengthy archive of images going back to 1980, the digital era has allowed me to bring back hundreds of photos from a single trip to the mountain, where I might have captured a dozen during the film era that was rapidly winding down by the early 2000s. 

Then and now – my 2002 pocket camera and 2022 digital SLR, along with the 2002 photos I hoped to re-create.

The result is enough archived images beginning in 2022 to create a fairly thorough then-and-now comparison of the Eliot Glacier and surrounding environment along the Cooper Spur trail. The 2002 images came from a Canon A50 PowerShot pocket camera, still one of the best digital cameras I’ve owned over the years. Not long after this trip in 2002, I added my first digital SLR to my camera collection, and I have long since retired my film cameras for good. The 2020 images were captured with an Olympus EM-10 digital SLR, my fifth digital SLR, and easily my favorite (thus far).

To re-create the images from that 2002 trip, I carried a folded-up, modern-day version of a film-era proof sheet from that earlier visit in my pocket on a hike up Cooper Spur last September. Along the way, I did my best to match the scenes as I had viewed them 20 years prior. Once home, I was able to assemble 19 pairs that were close though to allow for nearly identical side-by-side comparisons. I’ve also noted a few points of interest for each image, keyed to both the 2002 and 2022 versions, to help highlight the changes that have unfolded. Because the embedded images in this article are inherently small, I’ve also posted a link below each image to a large version that will open in a new tab.

And now, how about a tour of these places in 2002 and 2022?

Change is constant… and surprising!

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From Cloud Cap, the Timberline Trail route to Cooper Spur makes a dramatic entrance to the upper section of Tilly Jane Canyon and the first big view of Mount Hood. The changes in the first photo pair (above) are subtle, though telling. As is the case throughout the Cascades, groves of (A) Mountain hemlock continue their march to higher elevations, one more indicator of our changing climate. Lighter snowpacks (which translates to longer growing seasons) might also be the explanation for more expansive groundcover (B) of Juniper and Penstemon in the foreground. In distance (C), a pioneering Whitepark pine has survived to grow from a few feet tall to nearly 20 feet.

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Moving further up the mountain, the Timberline Trail reaches a junction with the Tilly Jane and Cooper Spur trails (above), just above the tree line. Here, the most notable change is the battering the old trail sign has taken in 20 years of winter storms and avalanches.  The two signboards were still around as recently as four years ago, but they were finally swept away in the last couple years. The bottom of the 8×8” post remains, though it had snapped off mid-way several years ago — a reminder of the power of moving winter snow in this avalanche-prone area! 

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Just uphill from the trail junction, the next photo pair (above) shows a venerable Mountain hemlock  that has caught the eye of many hikers over the years. Notably, the Whitebark pine just behind the hemlock (A) has grown considerably, a hopeful sign for a keystone species that has been hard hit by climate change and disease in recent decades. The hemlock (B) shows some wear, however. The upper limb that reached out toward Mount Rainier and Mount Adams has lost the battle with the winter elements, and some of the lower limbs seem to be fading, too. But in the timeless cycle of nature, a completely new Mountain hemlock (C) has grown from beneath its elder, no doubt helped along by nutrients from the decaying limbs of the older tree and the protection from the elements the old hemlock still provides.

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Further up the trail, the old stone warming hut at Cooper Spur appears (above). These shelters were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the early 1930s, when the Timberline Trail was first completed. Thankfully, almost nothing has changed here, thanks to the work of volunteers who keep this old structure cabled to the ground and intact after nearly a century.

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Above the old warming hut, the Cooper Spur Trail heads into tundra country (above) as it nears the 7,000 foot elevation on the mountain. From this perspective, the retreat of the Eliot Glacier starts to become apparent, especially to those familiar with the area. The rounded ice crest known to climbers as the Snow Dome (A) is notably smaller and the depth of the glacier has receded enough in the lower reaches (B) to drop beyond the top of the east moraine from this perspective. In the foreground (C) alpine wildflowers continue their march to higher elevations where only a few grasses once grew because of once-lingering snowpacks.

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This photo pair (above) is from the first big view of the Eliot Glacier from the Cooper Spur Trail. The change over the past 20 years is unmistakable here. On the upper shoulder of the mountain (A), the snowfields that once led climbers to the summit well into summer are much smaller, making this approach in summer a very sketchy affair today, with much falling rock. 

This pair of images also shows how the lower Eliot Glacier icefall has changed dramatically in just two decades of glacial retreat. The blue chaos of seracs and crevasses (B) that were once a prime ice climbing destination are now well below the “firn line”, the point at which a glacier is losing more ice than it is gaining. This line is generally where a glacier changes from blue and white clean ice to a gray mix of ice and rock, as the glacier gradually shrinks and melts in its descent. Further down (C), the decreasing depth of the glacier is especially notable where blue and white ice have disappeared.

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The next pair of images (above) is from an overlook just below the crest of Cooper Spur, at about the 8,000 foot elevation. Here, the Eliot Glacier is still impressive and awe inspiring as a mass of tumbling ice and wrinkled crevasses. The notable change in these views is the thinning of the ice (A and C) along the glacier’s margins, with piles of rubble appearing between lobes of flowing ice. The main icefall (B) also has some underlying rock showing as yet another sign of the thinning of the ice sheet

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This pair (above) is simply a closer look at the main icefall from the same vantage point, showing (A) where the thinning ice mass has revealed more of the north wall of the mountain, and (b) where rock outcrops are now pushing through the icefall from below. Icefalls form because of these outcrops, so the appearance of the underlying rock is measure of the glacier depth decreasing. Twenty years ago, enough ice flowed over this outcrop to completely overwhelm it, whereas today we’re beginning to see traces of the rock beneath the glacier.

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This is another view of the Eliot Glacier from just below the crest of Cooper Spur, looking across the upper part of the glacier. Here the shrinking snowfields on the climbing route above Cooper Spur (A) are more apparent, as are the exposed cliffs (B) below the north face of the mountain, where the thinning ice has revealed a vertical well. On the shoulder of the mountain, a once-crevassed section of moving glacier has slowed to become a snowfield along the margin of the glacier.

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This photo pair (above) is looking across the Eliot Glacier from the crest of Cooper Spur, at about 8,500 feet elevation. It’s subtle, but the permanent snowfields (A) along the upper end of the Langille Crags are smaller today, and the lower icefall (B) is dramatically diminished, as shown in previous views. In the near distance (C) the silver ghost forest of the 2011 Dollar Lake Fire shows up today along the Mount Hood’s northern foot. In the far distance (D) the massive (and completely unsustainable) logging spree being carried out by timber giant Weyerhauser since taking over the timber holdings in the West Fork Hood River area a few years ago is painfully apparent.

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This pair (above) is a closer view of the previous set, focusing on the lower Eliot Glacier icefall. This comparison shows the thinning of the ice sheet (A and B) against the cliffs of the Langille Crags, and (C) the dramatic change on the near side of the glacier, where the firn line has moved several hundred feet up the mountain over two decades.

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Moving away from the Eliot Glacier, this photo pair (above) shows the broad east slope of Cooper Spur from the crest, looking toward the canyon of the East Fork Hood River. The changes here are subtle, but still notable. Historic Cloud Cap Inn (A) still stands, despite being threatened by both the 2008 Gnarl Ridge Fire and 2011 Dollar Lake Fire. The ghost forests of the Gnarl Ridge Fire (B) are recovering rapidly today, filled with understory and rapidly growing Western Larch seedlings that are now 6-8 feet tall. In the distance, the human scars (C) caused by Forest Service clear cutting on the slopes of Surveyors Ridge in the 1980s and 90s are gradually fading away, too, as the forests there slowly recover.

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Happily, not much change at Hiroshima Rock (above) in 20 years – or even 122 years! This unlikely etching by a 1910 Japanese Climbing expedition has somehow survived more than a century of fierce ice and sand blasting, perhaps because the carving is on the leeward side of the rock? It remains a favorite touchstone for hikers passing through. Here’s an earlier blog article on this unique message from the past.

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This photo pair (above) is looking back toward the crest of Cooper Spur from a bit further up the mountain, with a feature known as Tie-in Rock in the foreground. As in previous photos, the burn scars (A) of recent forest fires can be seen in the distance. The seemingly inescapable modern phenomenon of rock stacking (B) is present on Tie-in Rock, too. Size is hard to gauge here, but the rock is about 15 feet tall and takes some effort scale — much less with rocks in hand! The Newton Clark Glacier’s retreat (C) is somewhat noticeable on the far right, though the changes are much more apparent in the image pairs that follow.

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This image pair (above) provides full-on view of the Newton Clark Glacier from Cooper Spur. This sprawling glacier faces southeast, and because it catches summer sun from sunrise until late afternoon, it is has been more visibly impacted by climate change than the northeast-facing Eliot Glacier. What was once an icefall (A) 20 years ago is now bare rock, with the glacier flowing around it. Along the margins of Cooper Spur (B and C) the shrinking expanse of the glacier is prominent.

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This is a similar view (above) looking south across the Newton Clark Glacier. Like the Eliot Glacier, the lower, blue and white ice crevasses (A) on the glacier have fallen below the firn line, replaced by a grey mix of moving rock and ice. On the far shoulder of the mountain the former icefall at the center of the glacier (B) has receded around the rock outcrop that once produced it. In the foreground (C), the thinning of the overall ice sheet is dramatic over just two decades. Mount Jefferson is visible on the far horizon.

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This photo pair (above) is from far below Cooper Spur, at an overlook above the Eliot Branch called Inspiration Point. I’ve included it in this series because the retreat of the glacier has had dramatic impacts downstream, too. As the glacier continues its retreat, the Eliot Branch is cutting a v-shaped channel into the soft, flat valley floor that was once beneath the glacier, releasing vast amounts of rocky debris into the stream below. Compounding that effect are periodic flood events that have repeatedly scoured the canyon. As this pair shows, the changes are extensive. 

For reference, a grove of three trees (A) in the lower center of the above photo pair have dodged the mayhem, though a group just below this trio has been swept away by the Eliot Branch. Meanwhile, an entire stand of trees (B) on the west wall of the canyon has slipped away in a massive landslide, revealing raw, banded volcanic bedrock, below. Another stand of trees on the east side of the canyon (C) burned in the 2011 Dollar Lake Fire, as did the remaining trees (D) in the upper west side of the canyon. This continues to be a very active, dynamic area, with constant changes to the river channel and canyon walls.

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The final photo pair is a longer comparison of just over 120 years, as seen from Cloud Cap Inn. Mirroring the changes shown throughout this article, the Eliot is a much smaller glacier today than it was when my own grandparents were born around 1900. The mass of ice and rock (A) that once made up the terminus would be enough to fill up much of downtown Portland. The lesser-known Langille Glacier (B) has almost certainly stopped moving, and has become a series of icefields. The Coe Glacier (C) is also in retreat, despite its shady location on the north side of the mountain.

Changes like those we are seeing on Mount Hood are tough to absorb, and thus I was determined to end this article on a hopeful note. Why? Because I’m a hopeful and optimistic person to the core, but also because there is much we can do to slow the climate change that is affecting so much of our world.

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We’re not powerless against these changes, though we do have a limited time on this planet to do our part. And thus, the final image pair (above). Why, it’s me! In 2002 I was a 40-year-old with blond hair and a red beard. Fast forward to 2022 and… well, at age 60 there’s not much hair left and the beard has turned decidedly gray. Time is not on my side, to be sure, but there is plenty more I can do in my life!

The benefit of 20 more years of living is the knowledge that I can still hoof it to the top of Cooper Spur (if a lot more slowly — and feeling it more the next day, too!) and still see things I’ve never noticed before. In 2002 I was still just thinking about how I could help keep the century-old idea of a national park around Mount Hood and the Gorge alive. Two years later, I started the Mount Hood National Park Campaign website to put the idea into words and pictures (and yes, it does need an update!). Six years later, I started writing this blog to continue celebrating the future Mount Hood National Park. That’s something I can continue to do even when getting to the top of Cooper Spur is finally out of my reach!

At age 60 I know I can’t single-handedly stop the changes happening on Mount Hood and in the Gorge, whether it be from climate change to just the sheer growth in the number of people coming here. But age DOES bring the super-power of perspective that can only come from time and lived experience — and in my case, I’ve also got the photos to prove it! I’m able to put a face on those changes to help inspire caring and action toward a new vision for the future, one that focuses on sustainability and adaptation in the face of change. That’s the point of this article and the WyEast Blog, of course.

And what about the future..?

Throughout that day on Cooper Spur in September, I watched a group of young glacier explorers far below me, working their way through rock debris and over crevasses as they approached the main icefall on the Eliot Glacier. I took a few photos of the group along the way, and was thus delighted to run into them on their return to the trailhead that afternoon. I turns out they were students from Pacific University’s Outdoor Leadership Program, led by instructor Philip Friesen. 

If the then-and-now photos of changes on Mount Hood are tough to look, this is where the real hopefulness in this article comes in. Phil’s program at Pacific is pointing a new generation of future leaders toward a life and careers in the outdoors that I believe will be transformational for many of the environmental challenges we’re facing today. 

When I asked, here’s how Phil describes his program:

“I think the main thing to share with the world is that the students in our program focus on addressing systemic oppression and environmental issues while learning how to courageously lead others into the mountains, on rivers, and on the rock–we combine the joy of being outdoors in nature with the challenge of meeting some of our society’s biggest challenges.”

And there are many other educators like Phil out there helping young people of today turn their passion for the outdoors and their hunger to enact positive change into lifelong careers that will have a real impact in making a better world. As an old guy with only a few years left to do my part, I find this so inspiring and reassuring!

Phil Friesen (left) and his group of Pacific University students from the Outdoor Leadership Program are all smiles last September, even after a grueling climb up the Eliot Glacier!

Students in Phil’s program spend extensive time in the outdoors, learning how to hike, climb and kayak, so that they may be able to bring the outdoor experience to others over their lifetimes. This is the very best path toward conservation and sustainability, especially for our public lands. Only when we spend time there can we begin to feel the personal sense of ownership necessary to care for and protect these spaces in perpetuity.

I have great faith in what we have named “Generation Z”, and so does Phil. Young people majoring in Outdoor Leadership at Pacific are readying themselves for a life doing what they love, whether it be as a guide, ranger, naturalist or many other emerging careers in the growing outdoor industry. They’re also learning about the history of exclusion on our public lands, and the urgent need to remove barriers so that all Americans can enrich their lives in the same way that the most privileged among us already do. That hits home for them, too, as they are by far the most diverse generation in our history. 

Phil plans to share these images with his students, most of whom were born around 2002, when I took that first set of photos. They will likely find them jarring, as they only know the Eliot Glacier of today, and may not realize how quickly it is fading away. But they have an abundance  of passion for the environment, and I do think these photos will lend still more urgency to them in their commitment to make our world a better place.

The author getting his head straight in the shadow of mighty WyEast before heading home for  another week in civilization (Photo by Andy Prahl)

The real power of the Outdoor Leadership Program – and this is true for anyone who spends time in the outdoors – is the cascade of reflections that immersion in nature fosters. No matter your walk of life, time on a trail, among the trees or through mountain meadows, ensures the perspective, peace of mind and hopefulness needed to make the rest of our busy lives more successful. I refer to as my mental health time, when I get my head straight before another week of Zoom meetings and e-mails. Phil’s students are learning this early on, and I’m certain it will be as restorative and rejuvenating in their lives as it is in mine.

Phil’s group was all grins after a grueling day climbing up a glacier. Such is life when you’re 20 years old! They don’t know it yet, but they are part of what could be the most consequential generation in our history. They have no choice but to grapple with enormous challenges that my own generation has so short on. But because I do get to spend a fair amount of time around today’s Generation Z, I’m more certain than ever that they are special. They are uniquely up for the challenge. Phil’s students are way too young to know this quote that has guided since childhood, but they are nonetheless embracing it like no generation has before them:

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“Unless someone like you cares an awful lot,

it’s not going to get better. It’s not.”

-The Lorax

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And a final note to Phil Friesen and his Outdoor Leadership Program students: Thank you for the great things you are about to do!

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Author’s postscript: My best to all who have followed this blog over these many years! I greatly appreciate the support and especially your passion and concern for the future of our WyEast Country. I have a bunch of new articles planned for the coming year and look forward to sharing them with you!

In the meantime, I hope to see you on the trail!

Tom Kloster • January 1, 2023

Warren “Barney” Cooper

/ Tom Kloster / 5 Comments

Early 1900s map with Warren Creek identified

While tracking down the human history behind the mysterious (and temporarily defunct) falls on Warren Creek in the Columbia River Gorge over the past year, I was surprised to learn that “Warren” is not the surname of a local homesteader or early explorer.

Instead, it is the first name of an early Forest Service ranger, Warren “Barney” Cooper, whose own surname puts him among Mount Hood’s pioneering royalty: the remarkable Coopers of the Hood River Valley.

The David Rose Cooper Family

David Rose and Marion Cooper with their family in 1884. Barney Cooper is on the right (photo: A Complete History of Mount Hood)

Barney Cooper was part of a pioneer family that figures prominently in the history of the Hood River Valley. His father, David Rose Cooper, uprooted from Aberdeenshire, Scotland in 1872 (where the Cooper family had lived for more than 300 years), and moved his wife Marian and their children to settle in America. After a trek across the country, David and Marion Cooper originally settled near Roseburg, in Southern Oregon. Here, they gave birth to several children, including Warren.

In 1882, the Coopers moved again to become some of the first white settlers in the upper Hood River Valley. David Rose Cooper was captivated by Mount Hood, and the idea of building a road to the foot of its enormous north side glaciers. In 1884, he teamed up with two local settlers, Henry Coe and Oscar Stranahan, to form the Mount Hood Trail and Wagon Company.

Under this venture, they built a trail to the mountain, completing work in 1886. The trail was quickly expanded to become a rough wagon road, and in 1888 opened as a 12-mile toll route. The new road led adventurers to the rocky crest on the shoulder of the mountain where the historic Cloud Cap Inn still stands today.

Cooper Spur was named for Warren’s father, David Rose Cooper

The legacy of these early pioneers lives on in our place names. A well-known Mount Hood adventurer from Portland, Dr. Thomas Lamb Eliot, spent time exploring the mountain with the men who built the first road, and named several prominent landmarks on the mountain in their honor: Cooper Spur for David Rose Cooper, Coe Glacier for Henry Coe and Stranahan Ridge and Falls for Oscar Stranahan.

With the new road in place, David Rose Cooper opened a “tent hotel” near today’s Tilly Jane camp in 1888, offering guide services where he led guests across the high country on Mount Hood’s northeast slopes. Marian Cooper and the couple’s younger children all helped in the tent hotel operation, including Warren Cooper, who was just 12 years old at the time. The oldest Cooper children stayed behind, tending the family farm in the valley below.

The Cooper tent hotel near Tilly Jane in 1888 – a young Warren Cooper is atop the horse in the center (photo: A Complete History of Mount Hood)

The modest tent hotel was short-lived. In 1889, a group of Portland investors had begun work on the Cloud Cap Inn, and purchased the Cooper toll road as part of forming a new Mount Hood Stage Company. The new lodge opened in August 1889, ushering in a new era of tourism on the mountain that continues to this day. The seed that started it all was the Cooper family’s tent hotel.

Barney Cooper and the Forest Service

Warren McCalley “Barney” Cooper was born in 1876 in the town of Wilbur, where the Cooper family first settled in Southern Oregon. Time spent on the slopes of Mount Hood after the family moved to the Hood River Valley had a lasting impression on Barney. During the 1890s, he became a forest ranger for the Cascade Forest Preserve, the huge federal holding that preceded formation of the U.S. Forest Service.

Warren M. “Barney” Cooper at Elk Meadows around 1915

Barney Cooper eventually served as the first district ranger for the Hood River Ranger District with the creation of the U.S. Forest Service in 1905. He served in this capacity for 15 years. During his tenure, the Mount Hood portion of the Cascade Forest Reserve was be set apart in 1908 to become the Oregon National Forest (and was later renamed the Mount Hood National Forest, in 1924).

There was no ranger station at the time, so Barney conducted Hood River Ranger District operations from his home near Parkdale. Duties were initially focused on protecting the forest from timber thieves and squatters, but soon shifted toward fire prevention. During this formative era, many of the familiar names we know in the Mount Hood area were placed on early maps by the first forest rangers, and many of the trails and roads we still use were planned and built.

A scene from the original route to Cloud Cap that David Rose Cooper conceived and built

In 1915, Barney led an expedition of state officials on a preliminary survey of the Mount Hood Loop Highway. Sam Lancaster’s Columbia River Highway was nearing completion in the Gorge, and there was great interest in completing a loop around the mountain. Barney led the group up Cold Spring Creek to Elk Meadows, then down to Hood River Meadows, bypassing the steep East Fork canyon — though the highway would eventually follow the more rugged canyon route.

Barney and Kate Cooper

When Barney Cooper was 28 years old, he married Catherine Elizabeth “Kate” Gribble, who had just turned 25 years old. They were wed on December 28, 1904 in Wasco County, east of Hood River.

In 1907, Barney and Kate lost their first child at birth, a daughter. In 1913, they gave birth to a second child, Wilbur David Cooper, who would live to be 97 years old. He died only recently, on October 28, 2010 in El Cerrito, California. Sadly, both Barney and Kate died in 1920, leaving young Wilbur Cooper an orphan at the age of seven. He was raised by the extended Cooper family living in the Hood River Valley.

Warren McCalley “Barney” Cooper

Barney Cooper’s cause of death is listed as “sleeping sickness”, which might seem odd today, given our familiarity with the tropical version of “sleeping sickness”. But from 1916 to 1926, another form of sleeping sickness — encephalitis lethargica — swept the globe in a widespread epidemic. Barney Cooper died in Portland on February 18, 1920.

Kate Cooper died just a week before Barney, on February 11, 1920. Kate died of “consumption”, or what we know today to be tuberculosis. Kate also died in Portland.

There’s no known history on the sequence of events that sent both Kate and Barney into a Portland hospital at the same time, but it must have been devastating for the extended Cooper family. They were in the prime of their lives, as Kate was just 41, and Barney 44 years old.

David Rose Cooper died shortly thereafter, in 1922, at the age of 77. Marion Cooper lived on for several years in the family homestead near Parkdale. She died at age of 89 in 1939, having experienced an amazing span of history during the course of her long life.

A visit to Upper Valley Cemetery

After researching the remarkable Cooper family history, I made a trip to the Upper Valley Cemetery near Parkdale a few weeks ago to visit the family’s gravesites. This quiet little cemetery is modest and unassuming, appropriately nestled between working apple orchards on all sides.

David Rose Cooper’s gravesite is located in the open center of the cemetery, and Marion Cooper’s grave is just a few feet away. Standing by their grave markers, Mount Hood rises to the south, and Bald Butte fills the skyline to the east.

Barney and Kate Cooper were laid to rest along the west edge of the cemetery, beneath the canopy of a huge Douglas fir and Port Orford cedar. A wood bench is located nearby, between the trees, facing the main part of the cemetery.

Gravesites of Barney, Kate and Baby Cooper

Barney’s grave marker is engraved with the U.S. Forest Service emblem – a forest ranger forever! Kate’s marker is a few feet away, and adorned with what seems to be a morning glory vine — her favorite flower, perhaps?

Between Barney and Kate lies their infant daughter, the first to be buried here in their shady family plot.

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A Lasting Tribute?

Before he died at the age of 97 in 2010, Wilbur Cooper had survived his wife of 73 years, Juanita, and one of their twin daughters, Leslie. According to published accounts, he is survived by his daughters Rosemarie and Carrolyn, son-in-law Jon, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

My hope is to somehow contact his surviving family so that they might learn about my efforts to restore Warren Falls on Warren Creek — places named for a grandfather they never met. This effort is complicated by the fact that Wilbur Cooper had no sons, and thus the Cooper surname may not have carried forward in his branch of the family.

A fitting tribute to Barney Cooper?

Learning a bit more about Warren “Barney” Cooper in researching this article further inspires me in restoring Warren Falls. It would be a fitting tribute to his contributions as one of Mount Hood’s first rangers.

I’m also hopeful his surviving descendents might be able to shed more light on Warren Falls and Warren Creek — and on Barney Coopers life in the woods. If you know someone in the Cooper family who might be able to help me in that effort, please forward this article to them.
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For more family history on Barney and Wilbur Cooper:

• L.J. Cooper’s Recollections of Barney Cooper (PDF)

• Wilbur Cooper’s 2010 obituary (PDF)

As always, Jack Grauer’s “Complete History of Mount Hood” (first edition) was invaluable in putting this article together.

The author on Cooper Spur in September 2012

Hiroshima Rock Centennial (1910-2010)

/ Tom Kloster

Hiroshima Rock and Mount Hood

Today 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 “Hiroshima Rock”, and a familiar feature to generations of hikers and climbers who have since passed this spot.

Detail of Hiroshima Rock

Little is recorded about the expedition, even in the gold standard of Mount Hood history — Jack Grauer’s Complete History of Mount Hood — though the arrival of a Japanese climbing expedition surely must have been reported in the local press of the time. Lacking that written history, what follows is my own speculation on the climb.

The inscription contains both English and Japanese text, and supposedly the Japanese portion identifies the expedition as originating from Hiroshima. It is not surprising that a Japanese expedition would seek out Mount Hood. Mountain climbing had blossomed as a sport in Japan in the late 1800s, just as it had in Europe and the United States.

But the Japanese interest in climbing mountains had deeper roots, dating back centuries to the earliest spiritual pilgrimages to mountain peaks — most notably, Fujiyama.

“The Pilgrimage” captures the long Japanese tradition of mountain climbing for spiritual purposes

It is therefore not surprising that a group who had likely climbed Mount Fuji numerous times was drawn to Mount Hood, on the opposite side of the Pacific. Both peaks are part of the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, and share a common volcanic origin. Yet, Mount Hood would have been a more technical climb, with its steep, deeply eroded slopes and tumbling glaciers.

It is also likely that the Japanese party stayed at Cloud Cap Inn, or at least stopped there, since the inn was still operating in 1910, under the management of Horace Mecklem, and would have likely been snow free in mid-July. At the time, the Cooper Spur route was the most popular ascent, since Cloud Cap Inn provided the best access to the mountain.

Traditional Japanese spiritual quest to Fujiyama

Given the very active climbing schedule of the Mazamas in the early 1900s, it is also likely that the Mazamas were involved in the Japanese expedition, or at least aware that a group from Japan was on the mountain.

The Japanese expedition likely used similar climbing tools to what Europeans and Americans employed at the time: layered clothes, knapsacks and alpenstocks. The photos below are LIFE archival images from the late 1940s that capture the look and feel of Japanese climbs just after the war. These images probably give a fair sense of what the 1910 climbers must have looked like.

Japanese climbing expedition on Fujiyama in 1948

Japanese climber on Fujiyama with Lake Kawajuchi in background in 1948

The second image from the LIFE series is interesting in that it shows the climber wearing traditional Japanese tabi, or toe shoes (see detailed view, below). Modern tabi are still widely worn today in Japan, and as anyone who hikes knows, modern toe shoes are a popular new trend in the U.S., too.

Detail showing a Japanese climber wearing tabi, or toe shoes

So, why did the expedition carve their record into the rock on Cooper Spur? The most obvious explanation is simply posterity, since it was common in that era to carve your legacy into rocks or trees in a way that we would find unacceptable today.

But a more intriguing possibility might be that that expedition was holed up on Cooper Spur, perhaps stalled by bad weather, or simply setting up a base for the final ascent. This might explain the time it would have taken to chisel the Hiroshima Rock message into a very hard chunk of andesite — an effort that would likely take hours to complete.

For now, the details appear to be lost in time. But the legacy of the inscription is an elegant reminder that attraction of Mount Hood drawn visitors from around the world from the very beginning, and still does.

Postscript

Chiyoko & friends celebrating at Cooper Spur (Photo Courtesy Guy Meacham)

Just after posting this article, I learned that Guy and Chiyoko Meacham led a group up to Hiroshima Rock on July 18, 2010 to celebrate the centennial (plus one day) and Chiyoko’s birthday (to the day). After cake and champagne, Chiyoko translated the Kanji inscriptions to read:

Left side: Mie Ken Jin – Ito (Person from Mie State, [Mr.] Ito)

Right side: Hiroshima Ken Jin (Person from Hiroshima State)

English portion:

July 17th 1910
Monument
[Mr.] S. Takahashi

You can read the entire trip report and see their beautiful photos over at the Portland Hikers site: click here