Mount Hood

Mount Hood is located about 100 km. (60 mi.) east of Portland, Oregon. Its snow-covered peak rises 3,426 m (11,239 ft) above sea level on the border between Clackamas and Hood River counties in Oregon. It is the highest mountain in Oregon and the fourth-highest in the Cascade Range. It can be seen easily from Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington.

The Native American name for Mount Hood is Wy'East. It was first described in 1792 by William Broughton, a member of Captain George Vancouver's discovery expedition and was named for a British Admiral, Lord Samuel Hood.

It has erupted repeatedly for hundreds of thousands of years, with the most recent episode ending shortly before the arrival of Lewis and Clark in 1805. It is considered a potentially active volcano, but no major erruptive events have been cataloged since systematic record keeping began in the 1820s. Eleven glaciers cling to the mountain's rocky slopes; these may be a source of potentially dangerous lahars (rapidly moving mudflows) when the mountain next erupts.

Mount Hood is second only to Japan's Mt. Fuji in the number of climbers reaching the summit. It is part of the Mt. Hood National Forest, which has 1.2 million acres, four designated wilderness areas and more than 1,900 km. (1,200 mi.) of hiking trails.

The mountain has five ski areas, including the only ski area in the U.S. that's open 12 months of the year. Timberline Lodge is a National Historic Landmark located on the southern flank of Mt. Hood.