I had always loved the east side of Oregon. I’d been laid off from my job on the wet, western side of the state, and there was nowhere in particular I needed to be. I decided that I wanted to spend the winter on the Dry Side of Oregon.
After spending a few weeks visiting a cousin in the Columbia Gorge, I headed south from The Dalles over Oregon’s High Desert, looking for a spot to land. I landed in Madras, a town on US 97 which is somewhat north of Bend.
The view of the mountains from the east side is nothing short of spectacular. They rise straight up from the plains with no hills or mounds in front of them. Here is what Mt. Jefferson looks like from Madras:
I planned on having this view all winter long.
Mt. Hood is also plainly visible from Madras, but it’s over sixty miles away. That’s a lot of atmosphere to shoot through. So one day, I took the road to Portland (US 26), partway up to Mt. Hood to get closer.
There are lots of good views of that mountain as you approach it from the east. Here’s one that includes the highway:
While waiting for a gap in the traffic on the road, that RV came by. I decided it would make a perfect shot of RVing in Oregon.
Here’s another shot taken nearby of just the mountain:
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This view is only 3.6 miles from the north end of the Skyline Road, which I wrote about here.
The original name of this peak is Wy’East, who was a god in the Chinook tribal culture. His brother was Klikatat (aka Mt. Adams in Washington) and they fought constantly over the maiden Loowit (known to the white men as Mt. Saint Helens). The Native legends speak of entire villages being destroyed by these brothers’ volcanic eruptions.
There are other legends about those three, including a land bridge over the Columbia (the Bridge of the Gods) that was destroyed by the god Sahalie (father of Wy’East and Klikatat) because of their bickering and warring over the beautiful Loowit. Geologists have determined that that land bridge actually existed.
I’ve always looked at this mountain with a certain amount of awe and reverence because of those old legends. And I prefer to call it by its original name, not the name the white men gave it. After all, Lord Samuel Hood never saw this mountain.
I was literally moving to God’s Country.
This post has been shorter than most, so the next post will come a little sooner than usual.
The south face of Wy'East is a most impressive shot indeed. Lake Billy Chinook area and Cove Palisades is a spot we used to go in my rowdy youthful days to play.
The excruciatingly accurate shot of "RV'ing in Oregon shows precisely that; a trail of cars behind some grandpa in a slow moving, under-powered behemoth that will never use the turnouts to let people around. At least that's the way 90% of them behave. Okay, I feel better now. xD
Great photos.