Pickathon 2011
This weekend is Pickathon, the annual indie music festival that finds a few thousand music lovers out at a Happy Valley farm just outside of Portland for a three-day musical menagerie. Across five completely different stages, more than 35 bands and artists bring their divergent sounds and create some incredible moments. I wrote about one such moment at last year’s festival — a dark Saturday night when the Heartless Bastards took the main Mountain View Stage — for my friend, Tim Labarge’s, new book, Pickathonography, which he’s unveiling this weekend.
You never really know who’s going to create those moments and when, but among the folks I’ll be watching closely this weekend: Truckstop Darlin’, Black Mountain, The Buffalo Killers, Pine Leaf Boys, Corinne West & Kelly Joe Phelps, Sunday Valley, Jesse Sykes, Grupo Fantasma, Vetiver, The Sadies, and many, many others.
The music’s sounding great, the weather’s finally looking like beautiful summer, and the Pickathon vibe has been setting in all week. In anticipation of this year’s fest, a tiny little excerpt from On Mount Hood and a picture from last year’s Pickathon, both of which help to illustrate the mountain’s subtle yet undeniable connection to one of the best music festivals around.
From the Volcano chapter of the book, which talks all about the geology behind not only Mount Hood, but the entire region:
Farther from the mountain toward Portland, direct fallout from Hood’s past eruptions is less evident. But there is plenty around to keep the volcanism that built the mountain and the entire region close to people’s everyday thoughts. Portland landmarks like Powell Butte and Rocky Butte — a city dweller’s quick fix for climbing — all rose from vents in the Boring volcanic field less than a million years ago, when Hood was itself beginning to burble. Shooting a three-pointer on the court at Mount Tabor Park, a characteristic Portland gem, puts you squarely on top of the vent that built the 643-foot cinder cone of the same name. And if ever in early August you head to the Pendarvis Farm in Happy Valley, just outside southeast Portland, for the fantastic three-day music festival known as Pickathon, you’ll be swaying to the tunes on the eastern flanks of Mount Scott, an extinct volcano named for Harvey Scott, editor of The Oregonian in 1889.
And from last year’s festival, a shot that shows just why it’s called the Mountain View stage:
Cover shot
I really like how On Mount Hood turned out in terms of its cover and design. (Hats off to Anna Goldstein for the latter aspect.) It’s clean and arresting, bold and inviting. The shot of Mount Hood is a classic one from Lost Lake on the mountain’s northern side that shows some of Hood’s most notable features: Illumination Rock, Yocum and Cathederal ridges, the Sandy Glacier.
Back when we were brainstorming titles and cover designs, however, I came across another photo that really caught my eye.
I’d been looking for a unique shot of the mountain. One that highlighted its classic symmetrical spire but maybe from a different vantage point than usual. Something that was dramatic but not too foreboding, unique but at the same time familiar.
After countless hours of searching, I found it.
Photo courtesy of Robert Brownscombe
Entitled “Morning Mist,” this shot of Oregon’s most recognizable mountain is like no others I’ve ever seen. It frames Hood’s classic, pyramidal peak, but it does it in a different way. Yes, this is the mountain’s western profile, which hundreds of thousands of people see from Portland every clear day. But this is that signature view from an entirely different perspective. Closer. Bigger. Bolder.
I tracked down the photographer through Flickr and found that one Robert Brownscombe was behind this incredible image of Mount Hood. Turns out, he’s an amazing amateur photographer who lives up by the mountain — and who has lots of stunning photos on display in his Flickr account. Cordial and responsive to my inquiries, he was amenable to having his photo considered for the cover of my book.
In the end, Sasquatch went with another photo, and the book looks fantastic.
But there will always be something about “Morning Mist” that helps me see Mount Hood in an entirely different way.
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.
On MOUNT HOOD 