Volcano Land

Portland is located within about 50 miles of two major volcanoes, Mount St Helens & Mt Hood, both of which I could see from the hotel.
Mt St Helens is an active stratovolcano in Skamania County, Washington, & takes its English name from the British diplomat Lord St Helens, a friend of explorer George Vancouver who surveyed the area in the late 18th century. The mountain is located in the Cascade Range & is part of the Cascade Volcanic Arc, a segment of the Pacific Ring of Fire that includes over 160 active volcanoes.

Mt St. Helens is probably most famous for the eruption in 1980. This was the deadliest & most economically destructive volcanic event in the history of the US. Fifty-seven people were killed, 250 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles of railways & 185 miles of highway were destroyed. The eruption lovered the height of the summit from 9,677 ft to 8,365 ft & created a mile-wide horseshoe shaped crater.

Mt Hood is a dormant stratovolcano, also in the Cascade Volcanic Arc. It is part of the Mount Hood National Forest which covers 1.067 million acres, has four designated wilderness areas & more than 1200 mi of hiking trails. The snow-covered peak is 11,249 ft high & includes twelve glaciers. It is the highest mountain in Oregon & the fourth-highest in the Cascade Range. Mt Hood is considered the Oregon volcano most likely next to erupt with the odds of an eruption occuring in the next 30 years estimated at between 3 and 7 percent. The mountain has six ski areas: Timberline, Mt Hood Meadows, Ski Bowl, Cooper Spur, Snow Bunny, & Summit that add up to over 4,600 acres of skiable terrain. Timberline Lodge is a National Historic Landmark located on the southern flank of Mt Hood & is the only year-round lift-served ski run in North America.

It was my aim to make it to Timberline Lodge to get a close up look at Mt Hood, but as I kept stopping to look at the sights along Columbia River Gorge I didn't make it in time. It didn't matter anyway, as there had been recent snowfall that made getting on Mt Hood very difficult. One of the main storys on the news when I arrived in Portland was the 'rescue' of a group of hikers that got caught in the bad weather up on the mountain.