Ben Jacklet Follows the Sun
I remember a few years ago my friend Ben Jacklet telling me that he and his wife, Christina, were about to embark on a trip around the world. Literally.
Christina had earned a year-long sabbatical, and Ben’s gig selling solar panels wasn’t something that needed to tie him down. So they’d planned a roughly 12-month adventure: a few months overseas, then a return to Portland, followed by a few more months overseas, and so on and so on. The itinerary would take them to Costa Rica, Peru, Mexico, Chile, India, Italy, Greece, Australia, New Zealand and beyond.
But it wasn’t all just travel and exploration, fine food, coffee, wine, scuba diving, swimming and hiking. An award-winning journalist who I first met in 2004 at the Portland Tribune – and who later created the Mt. Hood site Shred Hood – Ben also had big plans for a book. One that would explore how all these countries were harnessing the sun for clean energy.
Well, he pulled it off. Not only did Ben and Christina have the global adventure they’d envisioned, but along the way, Ben interviewed at least 50 solar experts and toured countless solar installations around the world – then had the discipline and literary chops to bring the book to fruition.
It’s called “Follow the Sun: Around the World in Search of Solar Solutions.” It’s got the endorsement of renowned author, environmentalist and activist Bill McKibben. And it’s available now.
The book is a fantastic read for anyone who loves a good travel story and who believes in the promise of solar energy. Find “Follow the Sun” here, and learn more about Ben and his endeavors here.
And for a look at some of the adventures that I’ve shared with Ben over the years, check out the pics below.
Some great Mount Hood reading
Fans of Mount Hood and the written word have much to be thankful for with the release of three (that I know of) new books this year.
One’s from a true fan of Timberline Lodge who writes about how the lodge and the mountain have taught her valuable life lessons.
Another’s from a hardcore skier who’s skied from the summit of Mount Hood more than 300 times.
And the third is from a seasoned search-and-rescue veteran who’s saved more than a few lives on Hood and who knows some of the best tales from the mountain’s storied and adventurous past.
All are highly recommended.
In Timberline’s Embrace: What an Old Lodge Taught Me About What’s Worth Keeping – Jean L. Waight.
This one came to me randomly about a year ago when Jean Waight, a Bellingham, Washington-based writer reached out to me in search of a blurb for her book all about her many years of escapes to Timberline Lodge. A huge fan of the lodge myself, I was fully on board from the get-go. She captures the lodge’s charm, what it’s like to have the place to yourself late night and how the wildness of the mountain is never far away.
Here’s the blurb for her book:
“As a fellow Timberline Lodge enthusiast, I connected with Jean Waight’s intriguing tales of the lodge and her time on the mountain. Timberline is the kind of place where you feel as if you alone are experiencing its singularity and creating new memories just for yourself. And yet at the same time, you want to share Timberline with everyone so they, too, can appreciate its unique grandeur. Waight’s book captures those sentiments and so much more.”
11,239: A Skiing and Snowboarding Guide from the Summit of Mount Hood – Asit Rathod
I’ve heard about Asit Rathod for many years. He’s a bit of a legend when it comes to Mount Hood, skiing from its summit and pioneering the annual solstice party at Illumination Rock.
For many years, there’s been talk of a book – part guidebook, part personal recollections – about the seven major ski descents from Hood’s summit mixed with some of Asit’s wilder stories. This year, the book finally came to fruition – with the help of a good friend and fellow writer of mine, Ben Jacklet, who has long been an advocate for Asit making the book a reality.
Skiing from the top of an 11,000-foot mountain is beyond my comfort zone, but for those who aspire to – or can – pull it off, Asit’s book is the place to start.
Crisis on Mount Hood: Stories from 100 Years of Mountain Rescue – Christopher Van Tilburg
I’ve interviewed Christopher Van Tilburg, a Hood River-based physician and backcountry adventurer, a few times over the years, including when his book, “The Adrenaline Junkie’s Bucket List: 100 Extreme Outdoor Adventures to Do Before You Die,” came out in 2013. He’s written 12 books, climbed, hiked and skied all over, and works for both Portland Mountain Rescue and the Hood River Crag Rats.
I first tried to buy this latest book at one of my favorite bookstores in the Gorge, Waucoma Bookstore, back during a Father’s Day spent on the mountain, but they were sold out. My son, Spence, and I returned last week and they had them – autographed copies at that – in stock. Stoked to get into it.
Mount Hood Gifts for 2019
It’s been a Christmas or two since I’ve updated this list of great Mount Hood gifts for mountain enthusiasts out there, but here’s the 2019 iteration, complete with some old favorites and some new additions:
- On Mount Hood: A Biography of Oregon’s Perilous Peak — Shameless, I know, but sometimes that’s just the way the world works. You can find it at Powell’s, Annie Bloom’s, Broadway Books and most other local bookstores. Here’s a list of stores outside of Portland, and you can always find it online at Powell’s, Abe Books, Biblio and Amazon.
- Code 1244: The 1986 Mount Hood Tragedy — Speaking of great Mount Hood books, this one from Portland-area author Ric Conrad recounts the tragic climb of the mountain by a group of students from the Oregon Episcopal School. You can read more about the book and see some great photos in this post, and buy it on Amazon.
- A Mount Hood pint glass — One of the coolest Mount Hood gifts in recent years is the Oregon Pint, a hand-blown pint glass from North Drinkware that has Mount Hood molded into its base. At $48, they’re not cheap, but they sure are cool.
A former Portland Tribune colleague of mine, Ben Jacklet, co-founded Shred Hood in 2013 as a community news and information site to cover the skiing, snowboarding and backcountry on Mount Hood.
Subscriptions come in a couple different options, including one-time and ongoing. Each has its privileges, including a sweet T-shirt and bottle opener depending on your subscription.
Find out more at Shred Hood.
- A donation to Oregon Wild or Bark —
Feeling a little more philanthropic this holiday season? Consider making a donation to some of the environmental groups that have worked — and are always working — to protect the region’s wild places, including, of course, Mount Hood. (Bark’s mission is more Mount Hood-centric, while Oregon Wild covers the entire state; both have played major roles in protecting Mount Hood and the Mount Hood National Forest.)
For more information about either of these groups, visit www.bark-out.org or www.oregonwild.org.
- Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries Lidar Map of Mount Hood — DOGAMI released this double-sided, water-resistant map a couple years ago. It includes 75 trails around Mount Hood, wilderness areas, roads, campgrounds, information for climbers and hikers, and a geologic overview. Just $6 at Nature of the Northwest.
- Timberline Lodge Ram’s Head Fire Poker — Fashioned after the larger fireplace tools used at the storied Timberline Lodge, this hand-forged wrought iron poker is classic Timberline through and through. I met Darryl Nelson, the blacksmith behind much of the ironwork that’s been installed at Timberline over the past 30 years or so, and he told me guests regularly try to heist these out of the rooms. Not good. Instead, find them at the Timberline gift shop for $80. The shop also has a nice array of vintage-looking posters and artwork, books, souvenirs and more. Check it out.
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.
Finding Summer on Mount Hood’s Lost Lake
I probably shouldn’t share this, but I think a few of my Mount Hood stories already have: the weekend after Labor Day can be one of the most glorious of the summer.
The past couple Labor Days, for us anyway, have been ripe with the first signs of the season to come: chilly, gray, damp; the kind of weather that makes it feel OK to stay inside for a change. But that transition can be a hard one to make, but at least the first weekend of it is usually just a fleeting reminder to get the rest of your summer in while you can.
And how we got it in this past weekend at Lost Lake. I won’t share exactly why this annual trip to the mountain’s Northwest side this time of year sits so high atop the list, but I think it’s plain to see.
It can be tough to get the popular lakeside campsites in the campground at Lost Lake, but luckily many of the other sites, tidy and surrounded by soaring Doug firs and lodgepole pines, leave little to groan about. Even so, it’s not really about being in the campground at Lost Lake. It’s all about being on the water.
And that goes for everyone.
Our escape to Lost Lake this summer found us there for three nights. The first two days on the lake were summertime at its best, with sun and swimming and heat and barely a care in the world. I thought repeatedly about doing the three-mile hike around the lake or the 4.6-mile one up Lost Lake Butte, which I’ve never done, but the lake just kept pulling me back and making me stay. Why leave the sunny shoreline when days like this are as numbered as they are?
As if on cue, Sunday morning dawned breezy and with an unexpected chill in the air. The trees swayed with high mountain wind and white clouds swirled with the blue sky. The sun shone, but it never warmed above 65 degrees — a difference of at least 15 degrees from the days prior. Out on the wrinkled lake, tiny whitecaps sprayed off the waves, and where, days earlier, scores of rowboats, canoes, kayaks, rafts and standup paddle boards plied the waters, now only a handful bobbed around. Still, we lingered all day, chasing the sunshine and crawfish, soaking in just one more view of the mountain and hanging on to what might have been the very last drop of summertime on Lost Lake.
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.
On MOUNT HOOD 