Qualla: Mount Hood

Mount Hood: Introduction

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Drive east from Portland on a clear day and Mount Hood fills your windshield - a near-perfect volcanic cone frosted with glaciers, rising over 11,000 feet above orchards and vineyards in the foreground. This is Oregon's highest peak, its most iconic landmark, the mountain that defines the state's identity. For the Multnomah people, it was Wy'east, a god transformed to stone after battling for the love of a woman. For modern Oregonians, it's simply 'the mountain' - a year-round playground visible from downtown Portland, close enough to ski before lunch and return for dinner, yet wild enough to have claimed more than 130 lives attempting its summit.

Read more: Mount Hood on Qualla

Mount Hood: The Sleeping Giant

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Mount Hood is not extinct. Steam vents called fumaroles warm the rocks near the summit, melting caves into the glacier that caps the crater. The last significant eruption occurred around 1790 - within human memory when Lewis and Clark passed below in 1805, noting the fresh volcan...

Read more: Mount Hood on Qualla

Mount Hood: Year-Round Snow

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Palmer Glacier, high on the south slopes, offers the rarest of commodities: reliable summer skiing in the lower 48. From May through September, when other resorts have packed away their lifts, skiers and snowboarders ride the Palmer Snowfield at Timberline Lodge - the only year-r...

Read more: Mount Hood on Qualla

Mount Hood: The Summit Chase

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Mount Hood is the second-most-climbed glaciated peak in the world, after Japan's Mount Fuji. On a good spring weekend, hundreds of climbers may attempt the south side route - a 5,000-foot elevation gain from Timberline Lodge to the 11,250-foot summit. Most make it. But the mounta...

Read more: Mount Hood on Qualla

Mount Hood: Gateway to the Gorge

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Mount Hood anchors the southern end of the Columbia River Gorge, that dramatic gash where the river cuts through the Cascade Range. The mountain's bulk forces weather patterns to split around it, creating the famous gorge winds that make Hood River a world-class windsurfing desti...

Read more: Mount Hood on Qualla

Mount Hood: Timberline

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Timberline Lodge is more than a ski resort. Built during the Great Depression as a Works Progress Administration project, it employed local craftsmen who hand-forged ironwork, carved wooden newel posts, wove textiles, and created a masterpiece of Cascadian rustic architecture. Th...

Read more: Mount Hood on Qualla