GalesAZ: Oregon trip - Mt. Hood, Ramona Falls, Hood River (September 24-26) (2 of 3)

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Oregon trip - Mt. Hood, Ramona Falls, Hood River (September 24-26) (2 of 3)

Per this post below, PJ and I toured Astoria and a bit of Oregon's Pacific coast. Next was the Mt. Hood area.

When making our plans, we weren't sure where to stay. Mt. Hood itself has a historic lodge - but we were a bit concerned with the weather "up there," plus felt the lodge might be like El Tovar at Grand Canyon (just without renovation for modern plumbing in the rooms, we had heard). So we stayed at a quite-nice golf resort in the town of Welches - quite a bit lower elevation, a few miles west of the mountain - and this suited us just fine.

Sandy River (Ramona Falls Hike)

Mt. Hood area is surprisingly close to Portland - less than an hour east. Beautiful car ride from Cannon Falls through Portland and onto Welches - forests for a big chunk of the trip.

Things we liked on this segment:

Nearing Ramona Falls . . .

Ramona Falls. PJ taking photos at bottom left.

1. Found a little restaurant (named "Rendezvous") about a mile from the hotel and had dinner there both nights - these folks are doing very interesting stuff for a little place pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Featured beer was Ice Axe IPA from Mt. Hood Brewing. Breakfast at the golf course restaurant at the resort - gorgeous setting.

Ramona Falls

Return hike

Return hike, nearing Sandy River; Mt. Hood in background.

2. The highlight of this segment of the trip was a perfectly remarkable hike on the Ramona Falls trail - pretty high on the side of Mt. Hood. Did this on Tuesday. Very different from desert hiking, to say the least. This is a loop, 7.1 miles total with 1000' elevation gain, and wonderful but very different views on the two main trail segments. First segment goes along the Sandy River - lots of forest but quite often open; great views here and there up to the summit of Mt. Hood. Payoff point for the hike is the wondrous Ramona Falls - I'll let the photos describe it. Return segment is much greener, shadier, tracking a small creek or river, sort of a "Lord of the Rings" atmosphere at the beginning of the return portion. I would much enjoy doing this hike again.

15-second video on Sandy River:

3. Another highlight was a road trip up to the Timberline Lodge (the place where we decided not to stay) - right at the timber line on Mt. Hood. This is another wonderful Depression-era lodge - will need to read about this, they went for a "massive" look. The third floor bar area was a delight - fantastic views of Mt. Hood, windows opening to the south to Mt. Jefferson, a large fireplace or whatever rising three stories, this was quite impressive. And a beautiful drive to the top. And we were really cold up there - great weather down in Welches but cold and very windy up top. Should have kept a "beer diary" - here, I had the Mt. Hood "Multorporter."

30 seconds or so at Ramona Falls:

Surprisingly good local restaurant.

4. To get to Portland, we decided to drive around the back side of Mt. Hood up to Hood River, and then drive into Portland via the Columbia River Gorge. This definitely was another highlight. Best part of thus segment was a stop at Double Mountain Brewery in Hood River (we walked into Full Sail right down the street - the main brewery in town - but preferred the look of Double Mountain). Here I encountered my best beer of the trip (which is saying a lot in Oregon): "Ferocious Five Bourbon-Barrel Brown Ale." Wow. Even their pizza was quite good. And there were these two yucks from Portland (Kansas State alums) sitting at the bar who were really quite entertaining.

Breakfast view, resort, Welches, OR

5. Driving through the Columbia River Gorge - very enjoyable, we crossed to the Washington side and stayed off the freeway for much of this. Stopped at Multnomah Falls - which is fine, but probably would be very fine had we tried one of the hiking trails there. There had been some wildfires and things were a little hazy in the first miles coming out of Hood River.