The Narrative Image

Monkey-cam had been monitoring the internet for weather reports and once he saw the little smiling sun symbols in the weekend boxes, he began begging in earnest for another chance to see Cooper Spur before the onset of serious snow. Regular viewers may recall that Monkey-cam was in the process of testing some boundaries and chose our last Cooper Spur expedition as the scene for acting out his new found sense of independence. I kept suggesting lower altitude hikes because I was pretty sure the last weather front had deposited snow down to the 4000 ft. level, but when I got an email from Mr. Lloyd (of Long Shadow Photography - www.longshadowphoto.com ) reporting that the road to Cloud Cap was still open, I relented and started rounding up the hiking gear. Mt. Hood as seen from the Parkdale Ranger Station where you can’t get forest parking permits on Sunday because they’re closed. It’s a fairly long drive from Portland to Mt. Hood so I was glad to have Monkey-cam’s company. We tried to ca...

My backpack sat open on the driver’s seat. I was stuffing last things into it. I made a little nest out of a fleece pullover, put half a dozen bananas in it, and carefully stowed it in the top of my pack where it wouldn ’t get squished. (Monkey-cams, in general, become very cross on those occasions when you proffer bruised bananas as reward for risky photography work.) I could see the Monkey-cam sitting in the passenger seat of the car, staring out the side window, sulking. (Note: The Monkey-cam and I, by mutual consent, have agreed not to call each other by our given names. We believe that this policy will help depersonalize our working relationship and allow us to more easily recover from grief should disaster befall one or the other of us during our photo expeditions.) I ducked down and leaned into the car. “O.K.,” I relented, “would you feel any better about it if I agreed to carry all the water?” The Monkey-cam whipped his head around and glared at me as if I was the world’s most ...

I was lured to the Cloud Cap Trailhead with promises of time travel back to the ice age. The information I read on the internet from the Portland Hikers field guide http://www.portlandhikersfieldguide.com/wiki/Main_Page (an excellent hiking resource!) promised spectacular views of Eliot Glacier from high atop Cooper Spur. The time travel part comes into play if one can imagine Mt. Hood’s most massive captive river-of-ice escaping its high altitude prison and joining its northern siblings in a steady southern migration. An ice age. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see Eliot Glacier, which is why this blog entry is called only the Road to Cloud Cap Trailhead instead of Cooper Spur Hike or Eliot Moraine Hike. I’m an idiot, but don’t take my word for it. Read on and see for yourself. The instructions to the trailhead(s) were simple enough. Go to Hood River. Take highway 35 south. Follow any signs that mention Cooper Spur Ski resort, then follow Cloud Cap Road to the trailhead area. Cloud C...