Tag Archives: White River snow park

Jul5

My friends come to visit – A drive around Mt. Hood

Posted on July 5, 2023 by perfectusvarrus

Saturday and Sunday, 20-May-2023 and 21-May-2023

Ohh man… it’s been a while since I’ve gotten to hang out with Dave! I think the last time was when I was still living in Hood River… and all I really remember was that we had a fire on the porch, wrapped Dave up in a sheepskin rug, and had him pose with a dwarven sword and a battle axe.

Those’re the kind of things we remember.

Anyways, Dave and his wife Lakay came to visit in May!

Saturday, 20-May-2023

Technically this story begins on Friday night… but the summary for Friday was “Dave and Lakay got into the airport, we drove home, hung out for a bit, and then fell asleep.” Simple and easy.

The real adventure begins on Saturday morning.

Our goal for this visit was to… well, visit! But every good visit needs a framework, and we settled in on doing something I haven’t really done before – visiting spots from a movie! Lakay is pretty into Twilight, and since it was filmed in Oregon and Washington we had an awesome opportunity to check out a few spots from the movies. The main town of Forks, up in Washington, was a bit out of reach for a weekend trip… but thankfully a few spots were nice and nearby.

Our plan for the day was simple and elegant: Relaxed morning, movie location lunch, then do a clockwise tour around Mt. Hood!

Breakfast was a nice meal at home, followed by some catching up and prepping for the days adventures ahead.

Then, our first stop on the tour – The Carver Cafe! Apparently it was a whole scene in the movie, and the super neat part was that we got seated exactly where the main actors sat in that scene!

From there, the legendary Multnomah Falls! Kinda interestingly, I ran into a coworker there who owns property in Oklahoma near Dave and Lakay… kinda weird, but definitely cool!

Then, a quick stop for views of Hood, a drone flight or two, and a it of poking around the White River sno-park.

Finally, our ultimate destination of the tour – The Timberline Lodge! We got to play on the snow a bit, had an amazing dinner, and then got the best present of all from Mother Nature… a full lightening storm, shattering the sky off to the East of the lodge!

I can’t overstate how cool the storm was – Lightening is much more rare in Oregon than it is in a lot of other spots I’ve lived, so in and of itself it was a treat… but the storm was limited to one specific cloud formation off on the horizon, which meant we could easily just gaze over at it and appreciate the cloud-to-cloud bolts, and knew when to expect the air-to-ground strikes.

We seriously just parked by an overlook, and sat on the hood watching the storm. I don’t know how long we stayed out, but it was at least an hour or so until the sky got dark and the storm finally receded into the distance.

<I didn’t get any pictures of this… forgive me, but my photography-fu isn’t quite strong enough to capture lightening yet>

A seriously good end to an excellent round-the-mountain adventure.

Mar11

Snowshoeing up the White River Glacier

Posted on March 11, 2023 by perfectusvarrus

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Saturday, 26-Feb-2023

It’s been a while since I’ve done a friend-hike up the White River Glacier… I think this is becoming a lovely tradition for my friend Ben and I, though. Even if it’s not super frequent, it’s lovely and a great chance to get out of town for a short adventure.

See, we work together. More accurately, we work in the same building but in different groups. Same department… but we don’t have any regular overlap. So we don’t get to chat in the office that often, and stories and ideas and thoughts always build up.

By the time we finally get a hike in, we basically just talk for seven hours straight about almost literally everything. Like, I legitimately have a whole page of notes about work ideas we had… and we didn’t talk about work the whole time (thankfully!). It’s lovely to decompress, and get to blather with someone else who understands on multiple levels.

So… yeah.

Breakfast at Best Baguette (yep, it’s accurate. They’re that good).
Then a drive to Mt. Hood through the snowbound Portland (you thought Wilsonville was hit by the storm?)
A hike up the glacier, to the lovely little spot that I camp (for lunch, don’t’cha’know)
And finally, a gloriously relaxed and well-tired drive back into town.

A good day, by any and every metric.

Mar2

A visit from back home – A last hurrah at Wahclella falls, White River Sno Park, and Timberline Lodge!

Posted on March 2, 2023 by perfectusvarrus

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Monday, 06-Feb-2023

My Mom and Steve came to visit!!

It’s been a hot minute since they’ve both been here to visit, explore, and catch up… 2019, if I’m remembering right, from when we went out to Seattle? Yeah… that sounds right, and sounds like long enough that we’ve got some adventuring to catch up on!

With all the beauty that I experience here in Oregon, I’d have been remiss to not take my Mom and Steve out into the wilderness!

The goal was clean – we’d do a lovely loop around Mt. Hood, starting in Portland having breakfast with Bri, and then we’d loop around the mountain clockwise, doing a short hike in the gorge and then having dinner at the Timberline Lodge!

It was lovely, if I may say so myself, and I’m definitely happy that we got the chance to get out into the mountain air!

Out breakfast spot was a lovely location in Ladd’s Addition, called Upper Left roasters… logically named, since it’s at the upper left side of Ladd’s! We ate, we chatted, and my Mom and Steve finally got to meet the legendary Bri from all my climbing and adventure stories. Nicely fed, we packed into the car, and headed into the Gorge!

Our target was Wahclella Falls, a lovely hike in the gorge that end at, unsurprisingly, a nice little pocket waterfall. We arrived, headed in, and made our way into the gulley that lead to the falls. It was short, but surprisingly rough, hiking… and Steve ended up making the safe call and heading back to the car a bit earlier than the rest of us – but we pressed on for the waterfall, enjoying a quick view before heading back and making our way toward the rest of the adventure!

From Wahclella falls, we made a quick stop at the White River Glacier, since I’ve posted so many stories and photos from that one spot. I had to show it off, right?

This time we didn’t go in far – just deep enough onto the snow to explore an amazing (multi room!) igloo that someone had made previously… and get a bit of chill into our bones so that we’d be able to adequately appreciate the warmth and light of our next stop – the Timberline Lodge!

The snowbound Timberline Lodge was, as always, absolutely gorgeous.

We shook off the cold, had an amazing dinner… watched the sunset over Mt. Hood. We actually got a perfect table, too! One of only two or three times that I’ve actually gotten that table!

You know, there’s advantaged to bringing the whole crew, I guess!