Skamania Lodge to Mt Hood Timberline

Skamania Lodge overlooks the Columbia River Gorge. From the sitting area, we enjoyed a glass of wine as the sun set with a gentle breeze. However, there was little rest for the wicked as we started the following day on the opposite side, first with a lovely ride on a 9 mile RT bike path overlooking the Gorge. A 12% and 14% rise out of town on 13th street got our hearts beating-- I think the city planners just liked to see consecutive numbers. At the top of the hill was a breathtaking view of Mt Adams behind us and Mt Hood ahead of us. From there, it was a set of gently rolling hills but accompanied by a headwind which might as well have been a climb as it took a commensurate number of calories to work through it. The day progressed and with it, the elevation continued as did the heat. At 4:30 we were at the bottom of the last climb of 6 miles to the lodge.We had climbed 5590 feet already. At 5 mph, head and cross winds, and a steep grade, it would have taken another 2 hours...I just didn't have it in me to do it so I took the van to the top.

We came across a group of "zoo bombers" from Portland getting ready for a race down from the lodge on kid's bikes. About 15 of them in a variety of clothing, including capes and body armor, were in a UHaul trailer going up the mountain as we were getting into the van. They get a bike selected at random and go down the hill for nothing more than bragging rights. as being the fastest. As we learned on Saturday from the paper, one kid crashed on the ride and was seriously hurt.

See the photo of our view from the top the following morning. We were above the clouds and only the other tall peaks (Mt Jefferson, Mt Batchelor, 3 Sisters) were visible.

We decended 6 miles at hand aching speed (hand aching from gripping the brakes). It was a good day to have brought all that extra gear along as the temps and the wind chill were pretty chilly. While we expected to have all downhill to Sandy, in fact there were a couple little 10% surprises mixed in. At the top of one of the hills was a pack of attack goats eyeing me as much as I was eyeing them.

We ended the trip with lunch in Sandy, a ballad from Mark the dentist, and a sigh of relief/sigh of wishful want of more.