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My wife and I lived in Portland, Oregon, for twenty-five years and often made day trips to Timberline Lodge. The Lodge is about 60 miles southeast of Portland and sits at an elevation of 5,960 feet on the south side of 11,240-foot Mt. Hood. This National Historic Landmark was constructed from 1936 to 1938 by the Works Progress Administration and was dedicated September 28, 1937, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Despite our many trips to Timberline, we had never stayed overnight in the lodge.  After retiring and moving back to Wisconsin, we made a trip back to visit friends in Portland and decided that would be a good opportunity to finally spend a few nights at Timberline.  It was the middle of May so we knew the weather would be nice. Maybe there’d even be some spring wild flowers to photograph.

The weather was fine when we left Portland, but as we headed up Hwy 26 to Mt. Hood, it started to snow.  Then it started to snow harder.  By the time we reached Government Camp, where we planned to catch the 6.3-mile steep and curvy road to the lodge, it was a blizzard.  When we lived in Oregon we always had chains in the trunk. Our rental car didn’t have chains.  Not quite knowing the best way to reach the lodge before reaching the bottom of a roadside ditch, we stopped in Government Camp and I called the lodge to explain our dilemma.  Much to my surprise, the woman I spoke with at the lodge told me that one of their employees was in Government Camp and we could get a ride up from him. She told us where to find him and soon our car was parked safely in town and we were riding up to the lodge in a truck that had no trouble with the snow.

The weather on the mountain did not exactly have a mid-May ambiance. We were dropped off in the rather vacant guest parking lot where we gave our driver a sincere thanks and a generous tip. Then we made our way to the front entrance of the lodge. Due to the heavy snow, a temporary Quonset Hut tunnel is installed every winter to provide access from the parking lot to the ground-floor entrance. The ground floor is considered the recreational entrance for skiers and hikers; the lobby is located on the first floor. Since the ground and first floors are completely buried under snow in the winter, the main first floor entrance is inaccessible. Winter visitors, therefore, must all enter through the tunnel to the ground floor.

(Click on any small photo to enlarge, then use arrows to scroll through the images.)

With the storm raging and the lodge half buried under snow, we spent some time exploring the lodge and looking out the windows to watch nature do her thing. The grounds crew was making a valiant effort to keep the roads and parking lots open. It was interesting to see that they didn’t just hire high school kids with snowblowers to do that job. It seemed a little strange to me, however, to see a John Deere tractor that was yellow. What happened to green? When I was a kid, John Deere tractors were always green and made a distinctive “putt-putt” sound you could hear from way out in the back 40! When I checked online I found, sad to say, that the John Deere 544H Wheel Loader is indeed yellow.

Just about everything in the building from door hinges to furniture is hand-made, mostly from local materials. Crafts persons were brought in to design and build models of the furniture, rugs, drapes, and bedspreads. Those crafts persons then trained unskilled workers who did the bulk of the work of making the furnishings. As you would expect, many items need to be restored or replaced over the years. When that happens, the Friends of Timberline try to use materials and methods originally used in the lodge. We wandered around the lodge taking it all in. Due to the depth of snow surrounding the building, we could only view Mt. Hood and the winter scenes from the second floor.

The central part of the lodge is a hexagonal structure that holds a 90-foot tall hexagonal stone chimney in the middle. There are three hearths at the base of the chimney, one on every other face of the hexagon. The “screens” used to protect the room from sparks are made of tire chains. We sure could have used some of those chains! Since the staff kept cozy warm fires going while we were there, this was an excellent place for us to relax, warm up, read a book and maybe even take a few photos.

Another nice place to relax was the Ram’s Head Bar. This establishment offers quite a variety of drinks, both cold and warm. After a few drinks, if you still remember that you’re hungry, you can add some solid food to your diet. Even when it’s closed, the colorful liquor bottles sitting backlit in the windows are fun to see and, oh yes, photograph.

Even though there were no spring wildflowers to photograph, we didn’t just sit inside and look out of the windows, we bundled up and ventured outside. Much to my surprise, there was a car from Hawaii in the parking lot. Apparently people from Hawaii carry chains in their cars. It was still snowing, so the visibility was somewhat limited. Since the average snowfall at the lodge from 2011-2021 was 356″, it obviously snows there quite a bit. Looking at the lodge you can see where much of that heavy snow slides from the roof piling all the way up from the ground. Looking up from the back of the lodge, I spotted a window from the Ram’s Head bar; the view from the inside was much prettier.

The winds were steady enough to impose a curve on the icicles. The snow on the branches was not at all fluffy; it was plastered on. The trees bent in that wind-blown snow and struggled to survive at timberline, literally the upper limit of where they can survive. Sometimes it helps to look at scenery as more than just an interesting photograph, but as a community in the huge web of life of which we are just a small part.

There’s a nice swimming pool and hot tub at the lodge … outside. They’re open year-round, and yes, the pool is heated. Did we go swimming? No! But the hot tub was too much to resist. I was reluctant to let my camera sit out in the crazy weather while we lounged in the hot tub, but I did take some photos before we went in. It was very easy to slide into the warm water. It was very difficult to climb out!

The lodge and its grounds are home to a ski resort, also known as Timberline Lodge. It has the longest skiing season in the U.S., and is open for skiers and snowboarders all 12 months of the year (subject to global warming). The next day was clear and sunny so it was easy to see the Palmer Lift, the top of which sits at 8,540 feet. The bottom of the lowest run, Summit Pass, is at 4,000 feet. This means the vertical drop is 4,540 feet. That’s a bit more than you’ll find at Tyrol Basin or Cascade Mountain.

After writing some postcards and enjoying a sunny view of Mt. Jefferson, which is the next peak south of Mt. Hood in the Cascade Range, we were graciously given a ride back down to Government Camp where we found our car and headed from snowy Mt. Hood back down to Portland.

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Additional Notes:

1. The interesting old Quonset Hut tunnel used as the winter entrance to the lodge has recently been replaced by a new one that’s supposed to give the impression of walking through a tunnel made of snow. Pretty, I guess, but it lacks the classic, historic feel of its predecessor.

2. So, what’s the weather like up at the lodge today? Check out the Timberline webcams.

3. Even if you’ve never been to Timberline Lodge, if you’re old enough and like movies made from Stephen King novels, you may have seen it on the silver screen. It was used for the exterior shots of the Overlook Hotel in the 1980 movie The Shining. (The interior scenes and the hedge-maze scenes, however, were shot on stages in London.) If you’re planning a trip to Timberline and would like to get a good night’s sleep, I suggest that you do not watch that movie before you go.