We’re off . . .
With the official launch of On Mount Hood now behind us, the book is out and about and kind of on its own. It’s been a pretty whirlwind run over the past couple days, but a great one, and one that has included a lot of generous media coverage.
- Radio interview with KPOJ
- TV spot on “More Good Day Oregon” with Andy Carson
- A fantastic episode of OPB’s Think Out Loud all about Mount Hood and live from Timberline Lodge
- A great piece by The Oregonian’s Jeff Baker
- A radio interview with KPAM (no archive to this one.)
I’m pretty sure the Lake Oswego Review will also be doing a story in this Thursday’s paper, and there will be another presentation at 7:30 p.m. this Friday, June 17, at Wy’East Book Shoppe and Art Gallery in Welches, 67195 E. Highway 26.
It’s all been great and I’ve appreciated everything. That includes everyone who came out to the event at Powell’s and anyone who’s picked up their own copies of the book. (I know these things can be skewed, but it’s still pretty exciting that, today anyway, On Mount Hood has been Amazon’s number one mountain book.) Thanks to everyone for the support. I hope you enjoy the book and the mountain.
When I was up at Timberline the other day for OPB, I was also reminded of why I set out to write this book in the first place. It was drizzly and gray at home and on the drive up to the lodge. But when I got to Government Camp, the mountain flashed through the thinning clouds. Halfway up Timberline Highway, the gray gave way to blue and Hood simply shined in the morning sunlight.
After the show, I stepped into my hiking boots, donned a small pack, and trudged up the hillside for lunch at about 7,500 feet. It was as beautiful as always.
Hood from just above Silcox Hut.
Another climbing anniversary
In recognition of the 11th ninth year since one of Mount Hood’s most memorable and tragic climbing accidents, which happened on May 30, 2002, I was going to offer up another short excerpt from On Mount Hood.
The passage would have come from a chapter I call Accident that looks at the tragedies that have unfolded on and around Mount Hood, from the very first time a climber met his maker on the mountain — it was a Portland grocer named Frederic Kirn, who in 1896 was swept off Cooper Spur by a rockslide — to a trio of climbers who tried to sneak in a climb up the Reid Glacier Headwall during a brief weather window in December 2009. In between, the chapter touches on everything from the Mount Hood Triangle and the OES tragedy to a freak accident in the volcanic vents high up on the mountain and a tragic slip that cost a married couple their lives. When the latter happened, I was a few hundred feet below the summit on my very first climb of Hood ever.
But the highlight of Accident, for me anyway, is a story about something that happened eleven nine years ago today. It involved several different climbing teams, a renowned Portland physician climber, a U.S. Air Force Pave Hawk helicopter, and a pararescue jumper named Andrew Canfield.
But rather than share an excerpt from the book here, I instead decided to embed an unbelievable video that captures a dramatic part of the story.
The rest is in the book.
Where’s that confounded mountain?
Mount Hood, in early spring or late fall, when it’s bright and white with new snow and sharply defined in the sunlight against an incredible blue sky, is one of the most beautiful sights to see. It’s not something you can adequately describe with words or that a photograph even begins to capture.
I remember the first time I saw Mount Hood like that — it’s in the book — and I love to share that view and experience with friends and family who come out to visit. For the most part, I’ve been lucky and my guests have been treated to memorable first views of the mountain. But occasionally, some get gypped. Occasionally, clouds hide the mountains for days on end, to the point that you’d never even know it was there if you’d not seen it before.
One of my best friends came out for a long weekend this weekend from Atlanta, and though he’s been out here before and seen the mountain in all its glory, it’s been probably close to 10 years since he’s been out. His wife, who came out this time too, had never been to Oregon, so I was excited for him to get to see the mountain again and for her to see it for the very first time.
No such luck.
From the night they flew in through tonight, the mountain never once showed its face. Not on our way to or back from the coast on Friday, not during a kid-free escape to the Dundee Hills for some fun and fabulous wine tasting and a quick jaunt to see the Spruce Goose on Saturday, not during a round of golf at Edgefield this morning nor during a tour of downtown Portland, a stop at Powell’s and a couple beers at Rogue tonight.
They flew out tonight on a redeye at 11:00, so even if the clouds were low enough to reveal the mountain from the air, they wouldn’t have seen it.
A running joke with my friend’s wife through the long weekend was that this Mount Hood doesn’t really exist. Unfortunately, thanks to this unrelenting gray and wet spring, it almost seemed that way this weekend.
But it does. It’s there. It’s beautiful. And now Cathy and Ryan will just have to come back out to see it for themselves.
South side of Mount Hood from Timberline.
Money Mountain
There are so many different sides to Mount Hood: skiing, climbing, hiking, the surrounding forest, the water, weather, history, people and places. All of which I at least touched on in On Mount Hood.
But there’s also an entirely different side as well: the business side. And while I included a lot of that in the book, I focused on that aspect entirely for a 2,500-word article in the latest issue of Oregon Business magazine. Enjoy.
Other mountain books
Though I’m biased toward one particular mountain and one particular book, the alpine canon is full of adventurous, inspiring, heartbreaking, and possibly even life-changing works. There are also a lot of lemons in there too. But in this post, we’ll focus on just a few of the better ones, a few of my favorites.
Art Davidson’s classic account of the first winter ascent of Denali.
Another memorable recounting of a first, this one of the first successful climb of a treacherous wall on the Eiger in Switzerland known as the White Spider.
A must-read for anyone who wants to know anything and everything about Washington’s Mount Rainier.
This one probably needs no explanation.
On the shelf
I just got back from a quick trip back to Ohio for a great family wedding and weekend with some hometown friends. It started off with a redeye, which doesn’t do much for sleep, and ended with a few tornadoes in Cleveland canceling my flight last night. Delta rerouted me through Atlanta this morning — had a 4:15 a.m. wakeup call — but they at least hooked me up with first class for the four-and-a-half-hour flight back home.
So, I’m feeling a little drained.
But I did get a nice little jolt once I got off the plane at PDX — and it wasn’t from the java I so badly needed. Instead, it came as I passed through Powell’s Books inside the airport. I was taking a quick gander, just to see if they were carrying a certain book on their shelves just yet.
They were.
On MOUNT HOOD 