Tag: Mt Hood

Mt Hood from the Dalles

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Claustrophobia

Usually claustrophobia is associated with little tiny spaces, like closets, small rooms, WC on the airplanes. But there are other types of claustrophobia’s, one of them is opposite of the small places, it is when people feel claustrophobic in large spaces, it just happens for these places to be a bit less “open”. I’ve heard stories of people who grew up in New Mexico, went to college to NC and felt absolutely claustrophobic.  If you been to both states then you’ll know what I’m talking about. And there is another type of claustrophobia, not space related, I call it “organizational” or “authority” claustrophobia. It is a bit complicated to describe it. All I can say is that I think I have that type of claustrophobia, that is why many years ago I left Soviet Union and pretty much all of my professional career work in consulting industry, which is to me one of the great forms of modern day capitalism.

Anyway, why am I talking about all this? Well, the following image got me thinking about it. Being free. Open space. No restrains. No other reason.

American Landscape

I love how you can see for miles and miles on the American West, there is no ending to it. On a clear day like this you can see so far away; we were about thirty miles away from the Mt Hood and you can see it like it is right in your back yard. Nothing like this ever happens on the East coast. Most times we have too much humidity here for such clear views.

While visiting Oregon one of the biggest surprises for me was how quickly the landscape and weather changes from West to East. In a matter of 15-20 miles it changes from lush-plush forest area to pretty much dry sun burned steppes. It was my first visit to Oregon and first time we drove from Portland to The Dalles, I really could not believe my eyes to such a drastic change in environment.

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Lavender Valley

Dmitrii46 Comments

If you ever decide to visit Mt Hood, make sure to go there via Hood River. From Portland take scenic roads to Hood River, then from there take Hood River HW (HW35) to the Mt Hood. But don’t just drive it all the way straight, take some exits and explore the Hood River Valley – it is pretty and full with farms producing pears, lavender and many other fruits. If you like one of the best huckleberry jams, then this is the place to buy some.

From many of these farms you’ll be able to see Mt Hood, just like in this photo. We stopped at the farm called “Lavender Valley” to see real growing lavender – first one for me! Real fresh lavender smells pretty nice and you can get some from the shop for your house or buy some lavender oils as well.

Thank you everyone for your comments, I appreciate it very much. btw, you can click on the photo if you like to see it in higher resolution with a lot more details.

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Mt Hood

Dmitrii28 Comments

Yesterday I posted an image from a very hot place. So in todays post it almost feels appropriate to post an image from an opposite spectrum, from somewhere really cold. Mt Hood in Oregon is perfect candidate for it and I have photo that will fit the bill. This photo was taken very recently during my short  visit to pacific north west. I took a ton of photos over one day period, hopefully many will provide slightly different perspective so I can share them without too much repeat of the same scene <sigh>.

This photo was taken about 30 minutes before sunset. I was staying overnight at the Timberline Lodge and went for some hiking before sunset and then the following morning during sunrise. As you can see I’m very near the top of the Mt Hoot alpine, this was taken somewhere midway of the last lift line that takes you up the mountain. They close lifts at 4PM, with sunset at around 5:10PM I was all along up there on the mountain. Pretty cool.

Most of you know it, but here is quick reminder, if you want to see any of my images in higher resolution then all you need to do is to click on it. They will open up from my photo gallery at smugmug.com. Enjoy!

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Mt Hood and the Mirror Lake

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Mirror Lake mountain creek shown in the previous post is just a few minutes away from this lake. We hiked 1.5 miles to get to and see this beauty. Lake is very shallow with super clear water, on one side of the lake you can see over from high and can see the bottom. There are couple spots where you have a view of the mountain and its reflection in the lake. The first spot is right of the wooden board walk, on the west side of the lake. So we got there, I decided to take some pictures and… on the south side of the lake, right in front of me and the mountain there were a few groups of folks running around, fishing and some even attempting to swim. Not a good point to take pictures, especially with hopes of the smooth mirror lake and mountain reflection. I took a few shots with folks moving around there and hoping to mask them out later on in the final image, but I really did not want to do that. So I decided to explore the shoreline to see if I can get another spot. The west and north sides of the lake are very low and somewhat swampy with a lot of brash and many snakes. We saw three during our short visit. So I started investigating other spots and was happy to find a little path on the north side to a little clearance with perfect view. After setting up camera I was about to start pictures, and you can guess, it got a bit windy. That perfect mirror vanished in a split of second. Annoying. So we just relaxed, took some photos of all of us, waited out the windy part and finally was able to take a few shots with some reflections. Enjoy.

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