A new way to an old favorite: McNeil Point
It’s kind of interesting, to think of all the miles we’ve tread on and around Mount Hood — all the way around it, up to its summit, out to its waterfalls and up to its grandiose viewpoints — and realize that still, 16 years later, there’s plenty that we’ve not tread.
Case in point: the Mazama Trail, a roughly three-mile path that unfolds up one of the mountain’s most prominent spines, Cathedral Ridge, along its northwestern face. Apparently it was long a popular trail until the Forest Service found itself unable to maintain it in the mid 1980s. Luckily the Mazamas stepped in, got it back up to speed, and officially dedicated it in 1994 to celebrate the club’s 100th anniversary.
Oliver and I set out this past weekend to revisit an absolute trademark Mount Hood locale, McNeil Point, a prominent and scenic overlook that perches high up on the mountain’s northwestern side and affords overwhelming views of Hood, the Sandy Glacier, cascading waterfalls, St. Helens, Adams and Rainier on good days, and so much more. We’d been there before — a few times, actually — but it had been years. It had been too long.
Rather than take the more standard route up to McNeil, however, we decided to tread new ground on the Mazama Trail. It takes a little longer to drive to, but it’s much quieter — we were just one of two cars at the trailhead — and it also shares a different take on the route up to McNeil, especially since the Dollar Lake fire of 2011. Now, rather than pass through forests of fir, you slog up Cathedral Ridge and stroll through not only the remnants of the fire, but the beginnings of what’s next to come.
The fire had its way with the ridge, but that’s nature. And really, as much as I love big, tall trees, forest fires can make for some pretty fascinating hikes.
The big payoff for slogging up four-plus miles and a couple thousand feet of elevation, however, has nothing to do with the remnants of a forest fire. It’s all about the mountain when you get to McNeil Point, which is named for Oregon journalist Fred McNeil, a huge fan of the mountain, author of the 1937 classic, Wy’east The Mountain, and one of the inspirations behind my own Mount Hood book.
The view from here, the fresh air, the feeling, is not easy to describe. Unless you’ve been there yourself, I’d say imagination works best.
Sunday on McNeil Point was an immaculate day. Warm and breezy, sunny and blue, the day was just what you hope for — and expect, really — of a July day on Mount Hood. McNeil Point is a popular place, to be sure, but that’s a relative term. I crossed paths with maybe 15 people up that high, and all were there to simply enjoy the day. Oliver, too, despite the stiffness that would set in the next day, relished not only every inch he covered, but the hourlong respite we enjoyed up high.
Hard as it was to leave, we had to, so we set off back down from the point, down across some incredible and colorful alpine meadows, across a few snowfields, past a seasonal pond or two, and back down toward the ridge. Oliver cooled off in the snow and drank from the streams. I took it all in as much as I could, and kept turning around to get one more last glance of the mountain before we descended into the trees, back toward the rest of the world.
Atkinson Memorial Author Fair
Enjoyed being part of this event so much last year that I’ll be back there with dozens of other authors again this year from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, June 22.
This year’s fair also ties in with the 100-year anniversary celebration of the Oregon City Public Library. On hand for that will be some big guns in the Oregon writing world, including author Matt Love and Oregon Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen.
On Mount Hood — in good Oregon company
It’s always flattering and honoring to come across On Mount Hood in local bookshops. This one came from Graham’s Book & Stationery in Lake Oswego, where the book has found a home amidst a great selection of Oregon books.
One of the things I really like about this picture isn’t just On Mount Hood though, but some of the other books that are there as well.
One row up and to the right is Crossings: McCullough’s Coastal Bridges by Judy Fleagle and Richard Knox Smith. What I love about that is that 12 years ago, Judy Fleagle was the editor of a magazine called Oregon Outside, and I was a furniture truck driver and an aspiring writer looking for a break. Judy gave me that break by publishing one of my very first pieces ever, a story about canoeing some of Oregon’s alpine lakes. The layout and design and editing were so nicely done that I still use that clip whenever I’m pitching other outdoor stories.
Right above Judy’s book is Timberline Lodge: A Love Story, which was edited by Jon Tullis, spokesman at Timberline Lodge. Jon not only provided a blurb for the paperback of On Mount Hood, but he also helped launch the book two weeks ago at Powell’s.
And just to the left is Hood River Valley: Land of Plenty, and below that, Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, both by Janet Cook — now the editor of The Gorge Magazine — and photographer Peter Marbach. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting both of them at past book events and have long admired their work spotlighting some of the beauty of Oregon, the Gorge and, of course, Mount Hood.
Great company to be in . . .
Writers Night at the Springwater Grange — this Saturday!
A little press release about a great writing event happening this weekend:
The Estacada Area Arts Commission is sponsoring its eleventh annual Writers Night at the Springwater Grange on April 20th at 7 pm. The Springwater Grange is located at 24591 S. Springwater Rd, near the town of Estacada.
This year’s event will feature Jon Bell, author of On Mount Hood: A Biography of Oregon’s Perilous Peak.Bell will read from his book, and show slides of the mountain from his extensive collection of images.
Jon Bell will be joined onstage by hosts Stevan Allred and Joanna Rose, and by Portland based writer and publisher Laura Stanfill. Stanfill’s Forest Avenue Press has recently published its first book, Brave on the Page: Oregon Writers on Craft and the Creative Life. All four writers are included in this anthology.
To celebrate the publication of Brave on the Page Allred, Rose, and Bell will read work that explores and defines this evocative phrase. Stanfill will speak about her own creative life, and the pleasures and pitfalls of being a writer, an editor, a publisher, a wife, and the mother of two small children, all while bootstrapping Forest Avenue Press from nothing to a going enterprise in less than a year.
In September Forest Avenue Press will release Allred’s short story collection, A Simplified Map of the Real World. “It’s a suite of linked short stories set in a small town I call Renata,” says Allred. “For me, being brave on the page has meant writing about the place where I live, fictionalizing it of course, but always running the risk that my fellow Estacadans will feel like I’ve gotten it wrong.”
Rose will read from her novel-in-progress, Everybody’s Rules for Scrabble. Her novel takes on the controversial issue of abortion. “There are lots of things we’re scared to talk to each other about, like sex, and death, and religion,” says Rose. “Writing about them takes some courage. It helps if your parents have already passed on, which mine have.”
As always, host Stevan Allred will invite the entire audience to his home for a reception after the reading.
Forest Avenue Press will release Stevan Allred’s A Simplified Map of the Real World in September of 2013. Allred has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has survived circumcision, a tonsillectomy, a religious upbringing, the 60’s, the break-up of The Beatles, any number of bad haircuts, the Reagan Revolution, plantar fasciitus, the Lewinsky Affair, the the Florida recount of 2000, the Bush oughts, the War on Terror, a divorce, hay fever, the real estate bubble, male pattern baldness, and heartburn. He is the editor of the zines Dixon Ticonderoga and The Intentional Ducati, and together with Joanna Rose, is the leader of the writing workshop known as The Pinewood Table.
Joanna Rose writes poems, short stories, long stories, and really long stories, true to life and also imagined. Some of them have been published (Bellingham Review, Windfall Journal, ZYZZYVA, High Desert Journal, Story Magazine, and the Oregonian newspaper.) One of them was so long it became a novel, Little Miss Strange. She teaches writing in classrooms all over the state, and with Stevan Allred at the Pinewood Table, which is in her living room in a small blue house in southeast Portland.
Laura Stanfill believes in community. She’s the founder and publisher of Forest Avenue Press and the editor of the anthology Brave on the Page: Oregon Writers on Craft and the Creative Life, a Powell’s Small Press Bestseller. Laura, an award-winning journalist, has been published in local newspapers and magazines in New York, Virginia and Oregon. She earned her English degree from Vassar College and she’s at work on a nineteenth century novel about bobbin lace, music boxes and a fainting pimp. See forestavenuepress.com for more information.
An outdoor enthusiast and wordsmith, Jon Bell has been writing from his home base in the Portland, Oregon, area since the late 1990s. After growing up in Mansfield, Ohio, Jon got a bachelor’s degree in history from Michigan State University, then traveled extensively across the American West before landing in Portland. His first published pieces were about some of his backpacking and climbing excursions in the Northwest, including countless weekends on Mount Hood. His work has appeared inBackpacker, The Oregonian, The Rowing News, Oregon Coast, and many other publications. He is also co-author of the climbing guidebook, Ozone, and a former president of the Ptarmigans Mountaineering Club. Visit his freelance writing web site, www.jbellink.com. He lives in Lake Oswego, Oregon, with his wife, two kids, and a black Lab.
On Mount Hood — Book blurbs and thanks
With the paperback of On Mount Hood coming out later this month (7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 24 at the downtown Powell’s to be exact), I had to find some solid and willing folks to offer up blurbs for the back of the new cover. Luckily, since the book first came out, I’ve met a few of those folks and they have been kind enough to lend some lines to the paperback.
Many thanks to them all:
Kim Cooper Findling, author of Chance of Sun and Day Trips from Portland.
Jon Tullis, spokesman for Timberline Lodge, vice chair of the Oregon Heritage Commission, and the author and editor behind the book, Timberline Lodge: A Love Story. He’ll also be part of the paperback launch at Powell’s on April 24th!
Jack Nisbet, author of David Douglas, a Naturalist at Work and other books.
A second round of thanks, also, to Bruce Barcott, author of The Measure of a Mountain, who gave me my first blurb ever, which is now on the cover of the On Mount Hood paperback.
On MOUNT HOOD 