Mount Hood

Mount Hood is a "potentially active" volcano in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. It is 11,249 feet (3,429 m) in elevation and lies just south of the Washington State border and the Columbia River. The photo was taken from the White River area on the southeast side of the mountain in the morning as the sun came up. We had spent the night there sleeping in our van after watching the sunset and after a long day of hiking and traveling. Mount Hood is the second most climbed mountain in the world and we could see the lights of climbers on the mountain before the sunrise.

We had left early in the morning Wednesday and driven down to Mount Hood National Forest. We hiked two trails there, the Boulder Ridge and Mirror Lake trails, a total of about eight miles with about 2000 feet of elevation gain and followed Highways 26 and 35 around the west, south and east sides of Mount Hood. Breakfast was finished when this was taken and we were getting ready to drive the rest of the way around the east side and back over the Columbia River where we also spent some time hiking and doing photography before heading home.