Mt Hood Above Timberline Lodge

What a great day...I remarked that I wanted to try and get a "milky way" shot and before we knew it we were making reservations to stay up on Mt Hood at Timberline Lodge, a historic landmark built in 1937 by the WPA, something we both have wanted to do forever.  We arrived late in the afternoon and headed to the "Ram's Head Bar" for drinks and snacks, then outside to hike above the lodge, where I took this photo.  This is looking north towards the summit.  The air at 6000 feet is thin and I'm out of shape, but it was still fun...and exhilarating!!!

We later had dinner in the Cascade Dining Room...wonderful dinner, but way too much food!  Then we retired to our sparcely furnished small room (very much like it was in 1937, equipped with an old rotary dial phone), an awaited midnight when it would be dark enough to try and get photos.  Unfortunately there was only several small windows of time when the clouds were not obstructing the stars....and although I took photos before and after midnight out of our hotel room window, the conditions were iffy at best. 

I will post one of the milky way photos as an extra photo, and there are more on both todays flickr set and tomorrow's flickr set if you are interested.  

more photos on flickr