The last real ‘white Christmas’ I had was back in New Hampshire in 2000. It was a year when a noreaster storm (I’d never heard of such a thing before) swept through the region and covered everywhere in record amounts of snow. When I close my eyes and picture a white Christmas, that’s the Christmas I see. Although I didn’t have a white Christmas this year in Portland, Oregon, I still got to play in the snow at Mount Hood.

You can see Mt Hood from downtown Portland and on clear days when it looks its most majestic I never fail to be impressed by this shimmering white mountain that is actually a volcano, albeit one that hasn’t shown much activity since the early eighteen hundreds.

I’ve since discovered a British connection to Mount Hood in that the mountain was named after the man who discovered it, British Admiral, Samuel Hood. Of course to think that Samuel Hood was the first person to discover this imposing landmark is, of course, absurd. Such landmarks are nonexistent in England and so as ‘everyday’ as it’s presence might be to the people of Portland, it’s still a sight that leaves me awestruck.

Before my arrival in Oregon the area was battered by bad weather and huge amounts of snow on the mountains. So a planned trip to Mount Hood didn’t disappoint my desire to see snow this Christmas time.

I stayed in a small log cabin belonging to a family who planned to pack 17 people in there on Christmas day for their traditional Christmas dinner. Built in 1928, the two bedroom cabin in the small community of Zigzag, was the brief home for the old time movie-star Jimmy Stewart who stayed there one summer during the making of the movie “Bend In The River” with Rock Hudson and Julie Adams.

I’ve added owning a log cabin in Oregon to the list of things I’d love to have one day should I somehow happen upon a personal fortune. Though I doubt the Ferrari I’ll also own by then will be to happy about the roads in the area. Landing my private helicopter might also prove somewhat difficult, but a log cabin in Oregon has been put on the list anyhow!

Below are just a few of the pictures I took while in the Mount Hood area. Most were taken at the unimaginatively named small town of ‘Government Camp.’ Apparently in the late eighteen hundreds there was an attempt to change the name of ‘Government Camp’ to ‘Pompeii’ after the US Government objected to the establishment of a post office called ‘Government camp.’ The name ‘Pompeii’ didn’t stick though, maybe in part because another placed called Pompeii built in the shadow of a volcano (Mt. Vesuvius, Italy) didn’t fair so well when that volcano erupted in AD 79.

—

The log cabin in Zigzag, Oregon
Mount Hood history