Last week, we spent Tuesday through Friday on Mt. Hood. Gail has been getting up in the wee hours of the morning and doing all sorts of planning on the computer. When she said she had made reservations for us on Mt. Hood, my initial thought was whoa, it's going to be hairy getting up there and back, not to mention very cold and snowy. But then I thought, hey, we'll just take it as it comes. If we make it great, if not we'll have a fun adventure anyway. Being a non-skiing coastal California boy, I knew I would be out of my element with the winter weather driving conditions. I was correct.
After passing through the town of Sandy, Mt. Hood started looming larger. At 11,250 feet elevation, it is the highest point in Oregon. Mt. Hood is also a potentially active volcano.
Our destination was Timberline Lodge, at 5,960 feet. You can barely see Mt. Jefferson off in the distance. The outside view of the lodge was used in the film The Shining as the Overlook Lodge.
The Timberline was a Depression era project built by the WPA.
It features hand crafted construction throughout. I particularly liked all the forged metal work. All the fixtures were hand crafted, as well as the furniture, rugs, lampshades, etc. Above is the door to a bread oven next to the fireplace.
On Tuesday, we could see the top of Mt. Hood clearly. It appears so close, but it is over 5,000 feet higher than the lodge.
Inside the lodge you can see the immense beams and amazing joinery. There was an activity room in which Gail whipped my butt every time at shuffleboard.
The art work included many carvings and paintings.
We were eager to try out the snowshoe trail, and did a trail loop a little ways up the mountain.
Looking south down across the lodge with Mt. Jefferson in the distance.
We went swimming in the pool Wednesday morning. I guess it was heated to about 85 or so, and there was a hot tub nearby - a necessity! The high temperatures were about 19-22 degrees every day we were on the mountain.
Wednesday morning and we were off to two nights at Cooper Spur Mountain Resort, about a 40 minute drive to the eastern side of Mt. Hood.
It snowed Wednesday night and off and on the rest of the trip. I was prepared to chain up, but we never had to.
Conditions on highway 35 to Cooper Spur Road seemed a little dicey to me. Luckily, there was very little traffic.
Heading up the mountain on Cooper Spur Road.
This is what we saw when we pulled in. No cars and no sign for the office.
Eventually we found the office and were directed to our parking lot above. We were the only people staying in this building.
We were on the ground floor, so our view was mostly into a snowbank.
Or room exceeded our expectations!
We weren't here to sit in the room, however, so it was off for more snowshoeing. Cooper Spur has several miles of dedicated trails for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing.
The snow was very powdery, making for some neat forms on the trees.
Meanwhile, our lonely car was getting buried.
The resort was the only place to eat, but fortunately the food was good and the staff were friendly.
The scale was much smaller than Timberline, but we enjoyed it more as a place to come back to. Timberline is great to visit once, or if you're a skier, it seems like a fantastic place. Cooper Spur only operates its downhill skiing facility on weekends, so it was very quiet while we were there.
We enjoyed some of the historic photos on the walls. Mt. Hood has real glaciers and crevasses!
The cozy bar and restaurant.
The "famous" Crooked Tree of Cooper Spur.
We were excited to try cross-country skiing. We rented the equipment and headed out.
We had some difficulty, however, as the snow kept building up on our ski bottoms, adding a lot of drag. Susan had us try some faster skis, which were initially very speedy, but quickly developed the same problem. Part of the problem may have been that the trails are groomed on Friday, and this was Thursday. We still had a few nice glides down the steeper parts, and the scenery and stillness were sublime.
Pretending I know what I'm doing.
Friday morning, about an hour before the next snowstorm, we could finally see the top of Mt. Hood from Cooper Spur (right above that cabin).
No, this is not me in the photo.
The main walkway to the office and restaurant is heated. I had been puzzled by its lack of snow.
Friday morning, and it was off to Trillium Lake for one last snowshoe.
It was about a 4 mile round trip to the lake and back on our snowshoes. This is the lake. Unfortunately, we could not view Mt. Hood as it was snowing again. The view of the mountain from the lake is iconic, being featured on calendars and other publications.
Headed back up to the car and the long ride home. Of note on the ride home was great food at Thai Home Restaurant in Sandy, and a scary hail on the highway around Toledo.
