The Jingle Bell Hike – Climbing Mt. Cube with the Arthritis Foundation

     

Views to the NE form the summit of Mt. Cube in December of 2011

The Jingle Bell Hike

Climbing Mt. Cube with the Arthritis Foundation

December 8th, 2012

2,909 ft. 4 miles

The Arthritis Foundation Staying in Motion

October 31, 2012

Wes Chapman

Preface

The Arthritis Walk^® is the signature fundraising event for the Arthritis Foundation. The Foundation says of the walk,” it’s not just an event, it’s a celebration of year-round movement to help prevent and treat arthritis”. After a successful Upper Valley Arthritis Walk in October, let’s keep the momentum going. Come join us for a Jingle Bell Hike up New Hampshire Mt. Cube and celebrate people in motion in the Holiday Season.

 

Every year the folks from the Arthritis Foundation sponsor events to get people together to celebrate movement and make a positive impact on the lives of people living with arthritis. These events raise funds for arthritis research, education and life improvement programs in communities across the country. Arthritis has been an unfortunate way of life in my family, and increasingly an unwelcome visitor in my own. I spend a lot of time in the mountains of New Hampshire and as an arthritis sufferer, fully appreciate the simple joy of being able to climb in these beautiful Hills.

The rallying cry of these walks nationwide is Let’s Move Together^® encouraging people to get up and get moving. I’ve been a very lucky sufferer of arthritis – able to move a lot. Come join us on December 8^th climbing Mt. Cube. It costs just $20 to participate – $10 more if you want a long sleeve Jingle Bell Run t-shirt too. As more fully described below, we’ll meet at the trail head parking lot on Baker Rd. at 10:00. This is a relatively short hike and only moderately difficult – I’ve done it with children as young as 6 years, and with people as old as 80 – it is a good family hike.

Wes Chapman on the summit with a canine fan club, October 2012

My preferred route up Mt. Cube is from Baker Rd. off Route 25A in Orford, NH up the Cross Rivendell Trail. This starts out on Baker Road on the track of the old Appalachian Trail. The Appalachian Trail was re-routed to the south and east several years ago, and the local folks built a foot-trail across the Rivendell School District (in both Vermont and New Hampshire), utilizing part of the old Appalachian Trail through Orford.

 

Rivendell was originally the fictional refuge of elves in J. R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Rivendell, is derived from the words meaning split valley, and applies to the school district which lies in both New Hampshire and Vermont. This is particularly appropriate moniker for states split by the Connecticut River and geological origin – Vermont is part of the North American Plate and New Hampshire part of the European Plate.

 

Large scale map showing access to Mt. Cube

Fine detail showing Baker Rd. and the summit

This will be a winter hike, and all participants should bring a day pack, appropriate clothing, water and snacks, hiking boots, hiking poles and Micro-spikes or similar traction aids. The trail is very well marked in blue blazes, and is not too steep. There are some good views out to the west on the way to the summit, and the summit is bald and offers terrific views of the Connecticut River Valley to the west and south. There is good parking on Baker Rd. just before the trail head.

The summit of Mt. Cube December 2010

Views from the quartzite ledge about .75 miles from the summit, December 2010

December is a difficult month to plan for hiking – it can be absolutely frozen or balmy. Please adjust your dress appropriately to the weather conditions, and remember – it’s a lot better to bring a little extra clothing than not have enough if the weather turns bad. While no winter hiking experience is necessary to do this hike, please remember that this is not a training hike, and we hope that participants will be experienced hikers and have some familiarity with outdoor winter activity. We would hope that the total time round-trip to the automobiles would be no more than 4 hours – which should leave plenty of time for a snack and some photos at the summit.

 

 

The Green Mts of Vermont across the Ct. River

Once I get an idea of the number of people planning to attend, we’ll plan to specify meeting areas at 9:00 am, so that we can do a gear check and “count noses” before we get to the trail head parking areas. I’ll meet those people coming from the west on 25A at the Fire Station in Orford (on Rt. 10, just south of the turn to 25A). As the time for the hike approaches, we’ll make arrangements for a meeting place for folks coming up I93.

 

If you are interested in coming on the Jingle Bell Hike, please drop me a note at mwestonchapman@gmail.com, or give me a call at 603 252 7340.This hike is a companion to the Annual Arthritis Foundation Jingle Bell Run/Walk, so if you cannot make the hike, please check out the Run/Walk – it’s for the same great cause: Arthritis Foundation Run/Walk.

 

Adios, from Mt. Cube

Staying in Motion with the Arthritis Foundation Weekend Walk

A Celebration in Motion with the Arthritis Foundation

A Fun Walk for a Great Cause

September 29, 2012

Wes Chapman

           

The Arthritis Walk^® is the signature fundraising event for the Arthritis Foundation and I joined them for the first time this weekend for their annual walk at Alice Peck Day Hospital in Lebanon. The Foundation says of the walk,” it’s not just an event, it’s a celebration of year-round movement to help prevent and treat arthritis” – and this is absolutely true.

Every year these folks get together to celebrate movement and make a positive impact on the lives of people living with arthritis by raising funds for arthritis research, education and life improvement programs in communities across the country. Arthritis has been an unfortunate way of life in my family, and increasingly an unwelcome visitor in my own. I had to come out and see what this was all about – and it was terrific; a group of dedicated people celebrating the simple beauty of being able to move.

The rallying cry of these walks nationwide is Let’s Move Together^® encouraging people to get up and get moving. I’ve been a very lucky sufferer of arthritis – able to move a lot. I was touched by the people – young and old – out celebrating movement on a cool damp day – not the easiest weather for arthritis sufferers.

I’m a fan of this event, and it is a great cause – I’ll be back. I hope that you enjoy some of the photos.

A post-walk gathering under cover

 

The start of the walk

 

A nice trail layout behind Alice Peck Day Hospital

 

Mrs. Baby on the Woodlands Trail

Climbing Mont Blanc

Retreat from the Matterhorn,

Redemption on Mont Blanc

Mont Blanc

Voie Royale Route

15,782 feet, 4,810.45 meters

July 25, 2012

         

Mont Blanc – the great White Mountain

(note climbers approaching the emergency shelter)

“This is the way the climb ends

Not with a bang but a Whymper.”

With apologies to T.S. Eliot

Goodbye Matterhorn, Hello Mont Blanc

Edward Whymper got it done, but we did not. We were victims of the weather and route conditions, with nothing to do but hang around Zermatt, do a little climbing and the Gornerschucht, a combination of canyoning and via ferrata just uphill from the town of Zermatt. The Gornerschucht is a great little route built by the local guides for use by guided parties only – built in a spectacular water-polished soapstone canyon. The route was a type of Disneyland for climbers and geologists, including Tarzan swings, zip lines, and some spectacular soft-rock geology – but it was not the Matterhorn.

Miles assists Alton in the Gornerschucht Tarzan swing, with Liz and Mark supervising

Post- Gornerschucht lunch spot

We did spend one day before we departed climbing the lower portions of the Matterhorn on the Hornli Ridge Route, and really enjoyed the experience. There was no one on the mountain – clearly everyone was waiting for the trail to come into condition – a few days after we were long gone.

Looking down the Hornli Ridge Route on the Matterhorn

Alton on the lower parts of the Matterhorn

Off to Chamonix and Mont Blanc

With the Matterhorn out-of-reach, I was clearly focused on the next (and final) objective – Mont Blanc. I rode over to Chamonix with one of our Matterhorn guides, Miles Smart, who gave a focused and interesting running explanation of the climbing and skiing opportunities along the way during the 1.5 hour trip. Chamonix is a larger and slightly downscale version of Zermatt, with Mont Blanc hanging over the town like a great white specter. Chamonix was host to the first winter Olympics in 1924 and has a long history of extreme mountain sports including climbing, skiing, para-gliding, mountain biking, and most recently flying via winged suits – a uniquely high speed and dangerous proposition.

Chamonix and Mont Blanc at dusk

Heading up the Hill

I had made arrangements to climb with Matt Farmer (aka simply Farmer), one of the guides from the Zermatt portion of the expedition. Farmer is a fellow geologist, a resident of Chamonix, and is engaged to a recent Dartmouth graduate – we had a lot to talk about. The prospective climb up Mont Blanc involved the better part of three days, with two nights on the Mountain in Refuges (huts), and started, as most climbs here do, with a combination of cog railway and aerial tramway lifts to get up on the Hill.

Chamois on the way to Refuge de Tete Rousse

Mont Blanc (La Dame Blanche or white lady) is the highest mountain in Western Europe, the 11^th most prominent in the world, and may be the tallest in Europe – depending on your view of the Kuma–Manych Depression in Russia. In any event, the Mont Blanc massif is a big pile of very hard granite, with a variety of meta-sediments on its flanks. The mountain was first climbed in 1786, and is owned jointly by Italy and France. It is climbed by at least 20,000 people per year, and gives rise to a large number of deaths due to exposure, falls and avalanches – the most recent being the tragic avalanche on July 12^th that claimed the lives of at least 9 climbers.

We spent the first night at the pleasant Refuge de Tete Rousse (the red head hut at 3,187 m), followed by a reasonable start at 4:00 am, and the push up the Gouter to the Gouter Refuge (3,817 m). The climb between the two huts is pretty much a scramble (equal in elevation gain to climbing the Grand Teton), accentuated by the sheer terror crossing the Gran Couloir, as an errant group (significantly off route) above us released a small torrent of debris from above.

The Gran Couloir – prone to debris falls - a sporting crossing in the dark

The Gouter Refuge is an absolute pit, and is being replaced by a space age looking structure. This has been a multi-year, multi-million dollar project, and is eagerly awaited by guests and crew members alike. In addition to a vastly expanded use of solar power, the new Refuge will have environmentally friendly composting toilets, replacing the old and malodorous “long drop into the Couloir” toilets that have been used for decades at the old hut.

The new & old Refuges du Gouter

Climbers exiting the old Refuge du Gouter & headed up Mont Blanc

The climb up from the Gouter Refuge was sunny, lovely, but a very long slog. Farmer did a great job keeping the show moving forward, and we were on the summit more or less on schedule, and back to the Gouter Refuge in time for a late lunch omelet, enjoyed amid the cacophony and tumult that is Gouter in the afternoon.

The long slog up Mont Blanc from Dome du Gouter

The Refuge du Gouter is the evil twin of the charming huts around Zermatt. It is overcrowded, chaotic, charmless and expensive. Adding to the misery, a thunderstorm blew in just before dinner, and the place filled up with dozens of people violating all of the rules, including two brazen scofflaws who proceeded to fire up their cook stove to make their dinner on the wooden floor – absolute mayhem.

Sleeping on the tables at the Refuge du Gouter

The beds were tiny, the crowd irascible, and I was very glad that I was headed down and not up with the 2:00 am crowd as it headed out into the fog and up the Hill. By the time that I got up at 6:00 am, many of the early climbers were back – having abandoned the climb in the fog. We were out the door, and headed back down to the valley by 7:00, and arrived in time for a much needed lunch back in Chamonix.

On balance this was a great trip, and I got to know some terrific new people. Not getting a chance to climb the Matterhorn was a disappointment, but the climbing around Zermatt was like nothing that I had done before – a real treat. The guides were great – both on and off the mountain – and I’m already planning a reprise. In the words of “Old Arnold” “I’ll be back”.

Shown below are some photos that didn’t make earlier publication, that I thought were worth a look.

Bill and Mark on Breithorn

Wes & Miles on Breithorn

Farmer & Wes on Mont Blanc

Alton & Craig on the via ferrata in Zermatt

Wes at the World’s highest opium den – the emergency shelter on Mont Blanc

A climbers grave in Zermatt

Adios from Mont Blanc

 

Climbing the Matterhorn with International Mountain Guides (IMG)

Matterhorn Climb with International Mountain Guides (IMG)

Zermatt Switzerland

July 19, 2012

Riffelhorn, 2927 meters, July 15^th

Rimpfischhorn, 4199 meters, July 17^th (scrubbed at 3,750 due to wind)

Pollux, 4,092 meters, July 18^th

Breithorn, 4,164 meters, July 19^th

           

The Matterhorn from the Rifflelhorn

The Matterhorn and a trip to the Alps

After a great trip to the Grand Teton with friends last summer, I really got a taste for big mountain alpine climbing, and set my sights on a trip to Switzerland and a try for the Matterhorn. I hadn’t been in the Alps for any climbing since 1975, and memories of that trip were long faded to sepia. I really had no idea what I was doing, but set my sights on a Matterhorn expedition through International Mountain Guides (IMG), an outfit with a great reputation, but previously unknown to me. Some coaching from the folks at IMG got me into some rock climbing training on Mt. Washington with the team from Eastern Mountain Sports, and I’m really glad that they did – these mountains are really big – and involve an awful lot of diverse alpine skills.

I arrived in Zermatt on one of the wildly idiosyncratic but beautifully engineered Swiss trains (cog railway), directly into Zermatt from the Geneva Airport. Zermatt has been the center of Swiss alpinism since Edward Whymper and his team first scaled the Matterhorn in July of 1865 with a 7 person party, four of who died in the descent. The disaster led to a rush of tourism (fairly ghoulish) which continues to this day, with the rope that failed in the tragedy still on display in the local museum. Zermatt is now home to the quite money of the rich and famous, but retains an amazing civic commitment to its humble agrarian roots. The town is full of ancient farm buildings which are still in used, juxtaposed to very high end condos and ski lifts.

Loading Hay in Downtown Zermatt

The Alps and the Matterhorn – Young Mountains of Mixed Origin

The Alps are a very young mountain range, caused by the collision of the African and European Plates beginning about 30-50 million years ago, and continue to grow vertically at a rate of 1mm to 1cm per year. The Alps are a strange mixture of these two plates, e.g. the rock that forms the top of the Matterhorn is actually an isolated piece of the African plate. The rock mixture includes metamorphic rocks from the deep crust, and relatively undisturbed limestone sediments. In the Zermatt area the rocks are a mixture of Gneiss and serpentine schist – which is really pretty rotten and soft. The altitude and glaciation have produced some spectacular vertical cuts – which produce frequent and highly undesirable rock falls.

The Matterhorn is an erosional remnant – albeit a spectacular one – composed of this soft rock. It sits alone, capped by the relatively harder African rock, isolated from its neighbors. From an esthetic perspective, it is spectacular, and like a fading starlet seems to end up in every photo. The faces of the mountain are particularly unstable, and most of the climbing routes run up the ridges. The mountain is taller than almost of its neighbors, and its height, together with its isolation, creates a magnet for bad weather. The mountain has been un-climbable for normal humans (super-human climbers excluded) since we arrived, due to the persistent snow and wind from the storm that produced the avalanches on Mont Blanc 10 days ago. We’ll see how things progress in the next several days.

The Team

Mountaineering is very much a team sport – albeit one with relatively fluid teams and requirements. We have 5 climbers in our group; Mark, a rock climbing entrepreneur from Dublin Ireland; Craig and Alton, two attorneys who are authentic Sons of the South; Bill, an eye surgeon from Washington State; and me – and every one of these guys is in great shape and loves to climb. The guides include 3 very experienced American friends – Matt Farmer, Liz and Miles Smart (married) – all of whom live in Chamonix and have guided for years. The IMG guide team is by far and away the best that I’ve ever climbed with – with both on and off mountain skills necessary to make this a successful venture. The guests are a pretty high powered lot – and consist of a bunch of guys each of whom is used to being in charge – a management challenge for sure for the guides.

 

The Team preparing for the first climb

The Warm-up

Our first day was a warm up rock climb on the Riffelhorn – a hunk of relatively hard rock cut into a spectacular rock face by the glacier coming off Monte Rosa. The day was sunny, warm and absolutely delightful. Liz, a native of Aspen CO, managed to get me up the 7 pitches to the summit without incident.

Liz & Wes on the Riffelhorn

The next day – Monday – included a little Via Ferrata – which is a section of steel cables, steps and ladders attached to a rock face to allow people of mixed climbing skills to access very difficult rock – and a trip to our first hut, the Fluhalp. Via Ferrata was first used by the Italians, in WW I for the transport of troops through the Dolomites and has morphed into a Disneyland for alpinists. Huts in the Alps vary widely, but the Fluhalp Hut is more like a 3 star hotel that you walk to. The food was great, the views spectacular, and the decorating over the top.

Alton relaxing in the Bordello section of the Fluhalp Hut

Mark on the deck of Fluhalp at sunset

The Tuesday’s objective was the Rimpfischhorn, a 4,199 meter peak about 5 miles away. This involved a 3:00 am start, and the walk went from alpine pasture to climbing a glaciated summit. Along the way the wind picked up tremendously, and we had to scrub the climb on a rock ridge at 3,750 meters. On the way back down we stopped back at the Hut for a plate of rosti – a Swiss dish of fried potatoes augmented with sausage, ham, cheese, egg – whatever. Each plate contained at least 1,500 calories – but we had clearly burned at least that much, and the taste was something out of this world.

Frustration on the Rimpfischhorn

A plate of Rosti – low calorie Swiss hiking food

Following an evening back in Zermatt, Wednesday was a climb of Pollux, and a whole lot of fun. This was our first successful 4,000 meter summit as a team, and it involved glaciers, rock climbing in crampons and a little help from a stature of the Madonna located very near the summit.

 Liz and Craig with the Madonna near the summit of Pollux

The exit off Pollux was down the glacier to a Hut in Italy – locally called Refugios. The setting was spectacular, and the food was terrific. While the hut did not include the singular decorating touches of the Fluhalp, the bathroom had the most spectacular views of an icefall of any bathroom in the world – I’m sure of it.

The Team at Pollux Summit

Icefall from the Refugio toilet

Thursday was the climb of Breithorn, and the most fun of the trip to date. We got a mercifully late 5:00 am start, and headed out onto the glacier. We crossed below the icefall – feeling like a pin in a bowling alley – and headed up to the rock. The climb was a spectacular rock climb along a ridge which had a fairly exposed cornice near the top. This was rock climbing in crampons at its best, and I had a blast climbing with Miles. We summited into some high winds, and hustled down to get back to the lift into the valley before a wind close – you have to love the accommodations of climbing in the Alps.

The Breithorn

Wes having fun on the Breithorn

Characters along the way

Ulrich Inderbinen – the soul of Zermatt

You can tell a lot about a place by the people it honors, and Zermatt honors the memory of Ulrich Inderbinen – 1900 – 2004. Ulrich was a simple man and mountain guide who first climbed the Matterhorn in 1920 with his sister Martha – with her wearing street shoes and a dress. He lived his whole life in in a house that he built himself in 1930, and heated with wood that he cut himself until the age of 102. He climbed the Matterhorn over 300 times, the last one at the age of 90. He finally retired from climbing at 95, when he felt that he couldn’t keep up the pace anymore. He is an authentic local hero, and everybody here seems to know his story. Ulrich embodies the respect for a simple agrarian/mountaineering heritage in the impossibly complex and highly engineered environment that is Zermatt today.

The Route and the Weather

As you can see from the photo below, the Hornli Ridge route (the center ridge in the photo) is still snow covered, and the weather is supposed to degrade over the next couple of days into storms of snow, rain and lightning. It will be disappointing if we don’t get up the Matterhorn this trip, but this is a famously difficult Mountain relative to weather, and you can’t tempt the mountain Gods. Stay tuned.

Adios from the Matterhorn

Climbing Mt. Hood with Timberline Mountain Guides

Mt. Hood, Oregon

5 miles, 11,249 ft.

May 19^th, 2012

         

Mt. Hood, as seen from Highway 26, approaching from the West

Mt. Hood or Wy’east in Multnomah Indian

Mt Hood is relatively diminutive by the standards of the other major strato volcanoes of the Cascade Range of the northwestern US, but it is the 28^th most prominent mountain in the entire US (a measure of how it stands out topographically from the surrounding Hills) and is simply spectacular. It is heavily glaciated, principally due to the incredible annual snowfall, and is the only place in the lower 48 that offers 12 month skiing. From a visual perspective, Mt. Hood towers above the relatively low-lying area around it, and was and often used in the past as a visual landmark by travelers on the Columbia River. In the words of Lt. William Broughton, who named the mountain after a British Admiral in 1792, “A very high, snowy mountain now appeared rising beautifully conspicuous in the midst of an extensive tract of low or moderately elevated land…”

The actual prominence of Mt. Hood resulted in some extreme mis-estimation of its height. As late as the end of the 19^th century, the height of the mountain was listed as 18,361 ft. (over estimated by 63%), and one Mr. Belden claimed to have climbed the mountain during a hunting trip and determined it to be 19,400 feet upon which “pores oozed blood, eyes bled, and blood rushed from their ears.”

The South face of Hood

Note the chairlift and explosion crater above with large post-eruption plug in the center

Without a doubt, Hood is a dormant volcano, but with large amounts of gas being emitted from the plug in the explosion crater which faces to the south and Timberline Lodge and ski area. There have been earthquake swarms within the last decade, indicating activity in the magma under the mountain, and as a result the mountain can (and does) routinely expand and contract several feet, making reliable measurements of actual height problematic.

The mountain has surely suffered severe erosion, doubtlessly hastened by the volcanic blast (of unknown time frame) leaving the classic explosion crater seen above. The Southern Climbing Route goes up through any of the ice chutes left in the northern edge of the explosion crater. This makes climbing Hood much different than most volcanoes – there is no classic summit crater – only a summit ridge.

Climbers on the Hogsback and heading up the face to the summit

The Indian name, Wy’east, is for one of the sons of the Great Spirit, Wy’east, who ends up in a love triangle and goes to war with his rival, destroying all in his path. The triangle is ultimately resolved, as they classically are, with much death and sorrow, and Hood is erected by The Great Spirit as a monument to his fallen son – probably as good an explanation as any – absent plate tectonics.

Climbing with Timberline Guides

Scouting around, I found that Timberline Mt. Guides was a first rate outfit, and that I probably didn’t want to try an unguided first climb of Hood – around 130 people have died climbing this Hill, and I did want to be number 131. I joined my guide, Geoff Lodge, at 2:15 AM, and we took off into the darkness, the climb starts just above the ski lifts, and heads directly into the explosion crater and onto the backside of the volcanic plug – locally called the Hogsback.

 

Geoff Lodge, of Timberline Mountain Guides, on Mt. Hood

Geoff is a native Oregonian, who got a finance degree, and ended up working for Angelo Mozilo (indirectly) at Countrywide Mortgage. Being a hearty sort, this experience took 18 months to turn his stomach, at which point he chucked corporate life and headed to the mountains – never looking back. Geoff is my kind of guide – 31 years old with a wife and twin 2 year old daughters – he has as much to lose as I do, and hates taking stupid risks. We got along famously – he can climb like crazy and tells a pretty good joke.

Geoff leading up the Chute

The top 200 feet or so of the climb is pretty sporting – going up ice chutes – and the standard route was clogged with up and down climbers, so we headed off to a chute on the right with much less traffic. We hustled up the chute, and onto the summit ridge – only about 150 yards from the actual summit. We were on the top in just over 3 hours. The views were breathtaking – the photos really don’t do them justice. It was a little cold and windy, and the crowds were coming up (almost 10,000 people climb Hood every year – and this was a sunny Saturday) so we reluctantly headed down.

 

Wes on the Summit of Hood

Climbers on the Summit of Hood

Hood’s sunrise shadow from the top of the ice chutes

 

Mt. Adams from the summit of Hood

North crater rim of Hood from the summit

Mt. Jefferson from Mt. Hood

The down climb was fast and we had skis parked at the top of the Palmer lift, for a quick exit. Skiing after a climb like that was more of a challenge than I’d anticipated, but the excellent breakfast buffet and a bed (I’d been about 48 hours with very little sleep at this point) at the Timberline Lodge beckoned.

The Timberline Lodge

I had wanted to stay at the Timberline Lodge principally for convenience – it is right at the base of Hood. I knew it to be an old WPA project from the ‘30’s, and a National historic landmark – but nothing else. I asked for the cheapest room that they had, and they said it was a 6 bed chalet for 125 per night. When I told them that I did not have 5 additional people with me to cover the rest of the $750, they said that it was OK – I could have it for $125, additional people were $35 each if I happened to find any. The only downside – you had to share a bath with another 6 bed chalet – that’s 12 to a toilet – a challenging ratio – but I figured that the best defense is a good offense, and if I needed the toilet, I’d just go early. Devil take the hindmost!

The Timberline Lodge, and the Grotto/chalet wing

It turned out that the chalets were just rooms on the ground floor of the hotel, and chalet must be a synonym for grotto in Oregon, the windows in the rooms were totally blocked by snow – even in late May. Most of the neighbors were pretty quiet – and I was very tired – and the accommodations were fine. When I awoke after a 5 hour nap, I started to explore this truly amazing place.

Greetings from the front door of Timberline Lodge

The Timberline Lodge was completed in 1937 as part of a WPA (Work projects Administration) undertaking that employed hundreds of men and women, and was built almost entirely of local raw materials and scrap, as there was no money for materials – and just subsistence wages for the employed parties. The average age of the workers was 56 – sound familiar? These people were talented, but swallowed up by the collapsing economy. They built Timberline in 18 months – and treated it as a work of art – every joint, timber, hinge and lock forged by hand. The blankets and rugs were woven and hooked by an army of women, and every piece of timber and iron hewn and forged by an army of men.

The art and artisanal influence was enforced by a 70+ year old German man, who had been found living in in piano crate in a Portland shanty-town prior to employment at Timberline. He had started his career working painting faux masterpieces, which he sold outside the great museums of Europe, escaping to America when someone represented one of his works as authentic – imagine that.

Celebration of labor – with a tie to the past

A carved post on the main stairway

A big cat preparing to leave

Hand forged locks and bang-plates in the grotto

The project was completed in 18 months, and opened by FDR himself. It was closed during the War, and reopened under lax supervision thereafter. By 1955 it had deteriorated into a mountainside casino and brothel, and was shut down, only to be reopened by Richard Kohnstamm, whose family still operates it today. The rooms are idiosyncratic, the food OK, but the structure and the functional art that it contains remain a tribute to the skill and determination of the men and women who built it – it is a must see American Icon.

 

Adios from Mt. Hood & Timberline Lodge