Mt. Hood
is definitely the commercial part of the Cascade Volcanic Peak circuit. Don’t get me wrong, the U.S. Park Service
pays for its cost in the National Parks by charging nominal fees and selling souvenirs, but for money making, Mt Hood is IT! Mt Hood is the Ski Resort heaven of northern
Oregon. The south side of the peak is totally
commercialized for skiing they even build a direct four lane road, U.S. 26, directly from
Portland to the Mt Hood Ski resorts.
There is still plenty of National Forest land and campgrounds and
trails, but none of the Washington State Peaks (maybe some of the nearby peaks
on the northern part of Mt. Baker) are commercialized like Mt. Hood.
My plan
was to go up on some of the unpaved forest roads to some of the trailheads on
the eastern part of the mountain and hike to about the 5500 ft level. Unfortunately I had a problem with an air
leak on the rear left tire and I did not want to risk driving 15 to 20 miles on
unpaved roads. So we took the Tourist
option and drove to Timberline Lodge Ski area on the southern part of the mountain. We did not get to do much hiking due to the lack
of time (it takes a couple of hours to drive from the NE side of the mountain to
the SW side).
We
stopped to fix the tire just past the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia Gorge – a National
Shrine in itself - and stopped to tour the dam.
We drove through the Town of Hood River and up the eastern part of the
mountain stopping to check the tire periodically.
The side
trip from our southern trek to California was worth it.
Bonneville Dam on the Columbia Gorge
Mt. Hood 11,250 ft. (3,429 m)
At a distance south of Mt Hood is Mt. Jefferson
No comments:
Post a Comment