Timberline Lodge

by Shelley

After our hike around Mount Hood on the Timberline Trail, we stayed at the historic Timberline Lodge at the base of the mountain. Although we don't usually do tours, we decided to take in two of them on our last day.

The first was a tour of the lodge itself. The lodge was constructed in the mid 1930's, during the Great Depression, as a Works Progress Administration project that hired unemployed craftspeople. Built entirely by hand, it's made of local and recycled materials -- large timbers from the forest, local stone, and old railway iron, just to name a few. There are beautiful carvings and other artwork throughout the lodge. Most of the stairwell posts had animals or birds carved in the top of them. A very large and heavy (1800 lbs) door leading outside onto the second floor balcony, still moves smoothly and easily -- a credit to superb craftsmanship!

In the center of the lodge is the "Head House" with a massive 6-sided, 3-storey chimney rising up through the middle. On the top two floors there are windows all around for magnificent views of Mount Hood itself or Mount Jefferson and other volcanoes to the south.

The furniture and other fixtures are also reminiscent of history -- right down to the large old fashioned wind up alarm clock that went "tick, tock, tick, tock, tick tock" all night long until I finally wrapped it in a towel and hid it in the bathroom before it totally drove me round the bend!

The second tour was of the Lodge's Wine Vault! We were the only two who decided to take part in this one so I think the tour "samples" were a little more generous than they might normally be! The Vault features many high quality products from local Oregon wineries as well as those in Washington and a few other parts of the world. One of our favorites was an Oregon blend called "Purple Hands". All were colorfully displayed along one wall of the Vault. We enjoyed several other Oregon wines throughout our trip!

Timberline Lodge