Where to get it
For months now, On Mount Hood: A Biography of Oregon’s Perilous Peak has been available for preorder on Amazon.com. But something shifted this week, right about the time I got my author copies of the book in the mail.
Amazon switched from preorder to In Stock.
So, it’s official now. You can actually buy On Mount Hood.
I was talking to the sales manager at Sasquatch Books last week, and she noted that Amazon these days is usually the first to have books available. After that, bigger bookstores, then smaller ones and various retailers, libraries and other outfits begin offering new releases for sale. So although the official release date of this book is June 2, the actual release is more of a rolling one. It’s available at Amazon now and can also be ordered from Powell’s Books, from where it will be shipped in 1-3 days or where it can be picked up in 7 to 12.
On Mount Hood will ultimately be available at bookstores and retail outlets around Oregon and Washington. The initial list of places that have ordered copies is down below. More to come.
Have any questions about where you can find the book? Drop me a line. And a big, hearty thank-you to anyone and everyone who buys a copy. Thanks for your support. Enjoy!
- Amazon
- Annie Bloom’s Books (Southwest Portland)
- Banes & Noble (looks like both WA and OR locations and online)
- Borders Books
- Between the Covers (Bend, Oregon)
- Book Worm of Edwards (Edwards, Colorado)
- Broadway Books (Northeast Portland)
- Elliott Bay Book Company (Seattle, Washington)
- OSU Bookstore (Corvallis, Oregon)
- Powell’s City of Books (Portland)
- Queen Anne Ave Books (Seattle, Washington)
- Reed College Bookstore (Southeast Portland)
- Snow Goose Bookstore (Stanwood, Washington)
- Third Place Books (Seattle, Washington)
- Third Street Books (McMinnville, Oregon)
- U of O Bookstore (Eugene, Oregon)
- Village Books (Bellingham, Washington)
- Waucoma Bookstore (Hood River, Oregon)
- Wide World Books & Maps (Seattle, Washington)
25 years ago . . . the OES tragedy on Mount Hood
Today marks 25 years since the worst climbing accident in all Mount Hood history: Nine dead, seven of them high school students from the Oregon Episcopal School. They’d been part of a team climbing the mountain for OES’ annual Basecamp Wilderness Education Program. The weather turned hellish, they didn’t turn around, the climb fell apart. Searchers found three bodies two days later; six more the next day in a snow cave buried under five feet of snow, but also, miraculously, two survivors.
For a number of reasons, I didn’t dwell too deeply on the OES disaster in On Mount Hood. I did touch on it, of course, and I also wrote briefly about its legacy on Mount Hood 25 years later for Portland Monthly this month. The latter story included an interview with Rocky Henderson, a well-known search-and-rescue volunteer whose very first mission ever with Portland Mountain Rescue was the OES climb.
“It was so frustrating,” Henderson told me of the search efforts. “When the weather finally cleared, we thought, ‘OK, now we’re definitely going to find them.’ But we didn’t. By then, there were no clues as to where they were. They had been completely obliterated by the storm.”
Something about climbing accidents intrigues people, myself included. And Mount Hood has had its share of them. But even though I was 12 and living in Ohio when it happened, there’s something singular about the OES accident. The scale of it, the what-ifs, the age of the victims. It’s heartbreaking. I read The Mountain Never Cries, a book by Ann Holaday, mother of Giles Thompson, one of the two OES survivors. I read all of the stories in the Oregonian from during and after the accident, the People magazine story, the piece in Backpacker, and on and on.
It is a sad but incredible story. One worth remembering, always.
Save the Date!
Even though I got an advance copy of my book last week, it’s still not technically available. Yet.
But on June 2, On Mount Hood: A Biography of Oregon’s Perilous Peak will officially be available online and on the shelves at places like Powell’s Books, Annie Bloom’s Books, and Barnes & Noble. (More locations to come.)
To officially kick off the book, we’ll be having a launch event at Powell’s Books on Hawthorne in Portland at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 9. There will be a mountain slideshow, some hors d’oeuvres and, of course, books. And after that, maybe a few beers in the neighborhood to celebrate.
Everyone’s invited. Everyone!
It’s real now
I walked out to the mailbox today, excited but reserved. I’d been expecting something to arrive yesterday, but it didn’t. So I kept my hopes in check just in case the results were the same today.
Sure enough, when I opened the mailbox there was little more than a letter from the water co-op, a program for the local theater company, and a whole lot of empty space.
Sigh. Close the mailbox. Wait till tomorrow.
But on my way back down the driveway, there it was. A nice, big, yellow envelope propped up next to the front door. The return address said it all: Sasquatch Books.
Inside was the physical manifestation of months and months of work and years and years of exploration, recreation, and fascination with Oregon’s signature mountain.
In stores June 2. Available for pre-order now.
On MOUNT HOOD 