MOUNT HOOD

We all look the same here as we traipse the corridors in our McMenanmin’s issue rough terry robes. (I keep my key in the pocket to prevent startling a napping attendant at 4am to beg to get back to my bed.) I’m in the Reporter’s Room, which seems so impersonal considering the rooms to the right are the Mary and Minnie Tibbits and the David Flinn Buxton (with a painting of a mystical brunette on the door). I’m writing this over not-quite-done oatmeal in the Black Rabbit restaurant. With each sip of orange juice my head, which when I awoke felt like someone had poured in a bucket of soggy seawater laced sand, clears a bit.

I sneezed all the way to Mount Hood and was glad to be suffering in the hot clear skies of Oregon rather than in rainy New York. I kept the silver Ford Focus hugging the curves of the scenic bypass to Mount Hood and after passing two snowboard clad hitchhikers eventually made my way to Timberline Lodge which sits at 5960 feet, half way up the mountain. From the lodge the ascent to the peak looks like a gentle slope upwards and on this warm day I wondered how it was possible to get lost and die up there while the piles of lazy snow gave no hint of their ferocious descent. The gracious historic doors to Timberline are masked with a reinforced army barracks style tunnel that allows safe passage. The only view from anything below the third floor is snow that appears to have been there since the Timberline was built by the WPA in the 1930’s.




I settled in for lunch with a view at the Ram’s Head Bar and a jolly young man asked if I was alone. To my affirmative reply he invited me to join them. I happily declined as the woman with him kept her gaze focused on the spectacular view. Fortified I headed toward the Columbia River Gorge in search of woods I could trample in my sandaled feet. I spotted two cars parked to the side of the rode and hoped it marked an off beat trail. After traversing disintegrating felled trees and moss covered boulders I spotted a bridge crossing a wide rugged stream. Just across the bridge was a trail heading two directions that was barely distinguishable from the dry needled pine forest floor. I took both forks and found impassable snow about 500 yards out in each direction. Ho hum, I had not packed sensible shoes! The second fork did offer an uphill climb with a view of the stream so after my ascent I settled in and soaked up the intensity of the rushing water.
The final leg of my loop back to Portland offered five waterfalls, Multnomah being the most famous and the only one with a snow cone vendor. My favorite was Horsetail falls where I took the steep, winding path to the upper falls. I braved the recessed cave behind the falls that gave me a thrill and fright not possible at the Opera and gazed through the raging runoff at the sun splashed lushness dappled with 100 shades of green.