Meeting some mountaineering royalty
There was a chance that Stacy Allison, the first American woman to climb Mt. Everest, wasn’t going to make it to the kickoff event for this year’s Climb for Clean Air program last night. She was on her way back from Denver, and the timing of it all made it a little uncertain.
But she made it — in time to catch some pics from a Hood slideshow even — and added another notch to the list of pretty incredible people that we’ve met over the years.
On Mount Hood at the Lake Oswego Library
This weekend, looking to drum up some early holiday cheer while also focusing on local creativity, the Lake Oswego Public Library is hosting Keeping It LOcal.
Held from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 15, the event will bring 20 local authors and illustrators together to share their work, both in conversation and in commerce. Among the authors scheduled to be there: Brian Doyle, who’s book, Mink River, is one of my favorite Oregon books of all time, and Scott Sparling, whose great book, Wire to Wire, is set in a northern Michigan locale that I know and love.
I’ll be there with On Mount Hood, too.
Stubborn Writers Return to Mount Hood
It’d been two years since we had stood there together, high on the northeast shoulder of Mount Hood near the stone shelter at Cooper Spur. The first time was day three of a circuit around the mountain on the Timberline Trail and we’d just made a pretty epic crossing of Eliot Creek. Then, though, we’d already been hoofing it for a few hours and still had another five or six miles to knock off before we could call it a day — and not all that much sunlight left before the day would be called for us.
We — myself and my writerly friends Mark Pomeroy, John Morrison, Joanna Rose and Morrison’s son, Jackson, the Stubborn Writers — stumbled into a darkening camp that night back in 2013, spent and hungry and barely able to enjoy a cocktail and a fantastic pasta dinner before crashing. We’d hiked hard that day, all four days of the trek, actually, and it felt like we didn’t really get to soak in Cooper Spur or Gnarl Ridge the way we should have.
So this summer, we went back. Only this time, we took it relatively easy, hiking briefly up from Cloud Cap Saddle Campground, finding a site and setting up a base for two nights.
And up there, with no real schedule, no set number of miles to log to make sure we were winding our way around the mountain in decent time, we were able to relax, to gaze at the sunset and watch lenticular clouds flow over Mount Rainier and Mount Adams, to ponder Jim Harrison, to spend time there, together, high up on Mount Hood again.
Sunset and dinner.
Breakfast and Jim Harrison.
A stroll over to Gnarl Ridge.
Lunch and Gnarl Ridge and Newton Creek.
A panorama from a solo hike up to Tie-In Rock on Cooper Spur.
Mark laughing big on Mount Hood in 2015.
Mark (and the rest of us) laughing big on Mount Hood in 2013 at the end of the Timberline Trail.
The Timberline Trail, Mark Pomeroy and Powell’s Books
I got an email out of the blue in the early days of 2013 from a Portland writer named Mark Pomeroy who’d grown up with Mount Hood, spending time at his grandparents’ cabin in Brightwood. He’d just finished my book and had an idea to tackle the Timberline Trail with a handful of other writers, myself included. Not one to turn down an adventure on Mount Hood, I signed on. Last summer we did indeed have a four-day adventure on Mount Hood.
Portland author Mark Pomeroy crossing the frigid waters of Eliot Creek along the Timberline Trail in August 2013.
Since that first email, I’ve gotten to know Mark and followed him on his way to getting his first novel published. It’s a work more than 10 years in the making. Called The Brightwood Stillness, it’s only the second novel ever published by Oregon State University Press. (The first was Brian Doyle’s Mink River)
I was fortunate enough to be invited to the official invite-only launch of the book back in October. But tonight, Mark takes his book to Powell’s on Hawthorne for a more open introduction. He’ll be there at 7:30 p.m. tonight, Thursday, Nov. 20.For anyone who loves good stories and books in general, it’s bound to resonate.
If you can’t make it tonight, keep your eyes open in the coming weeks for other appearances or, at the very least, pick up a copy of The Brightwood Stillness.
You can find out more at mpomerory.com.
On Mount Hood Heads to Bend
From Seaside and Seattle to Hood River and Sisters, I’ve taken On Mount Hood all over Oregon and into Washington for slideshows, readings and more. One place I’ve not yet been with the book: Bend.
That will change this week with a couple slideshows on Wednesday and Thursday:
- Downtown Bend Library — 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 5.
- La Pine Library — 12 p.m. Thursday, Nov 6.
See you there . . .
On Mount Hood Heads to Seattle
OK, I know Seattle’s got the king daddy Cascade in Mount Rainier and all, but Mount Hood’s not too shabby itself.
For anyone in the Seattle area looking to learn a little about Oregon’s signature peak, swing by King County’s Burien Library at 7 p.m. this Wednesday, August 20, 2014, for some photos, adventures and tall mountain tales.
On MOUNT HOOD 