CHAPTER XV
Mt. Jefferson to Mt. Hood

What do I find so interesting about place names anyhow? It must be one of the symptoms of being a map-aholic. Some people fill in spare minutes of a day by picking up a magazine and noting a recipe, or plans for a plywood bunk bed. I pull out a well thumbed atlas, and wonder about, ''those far away places with strange sounding names."

At times, names are the introduction to an interesting bit of history. We camped that night in a pocket meadow, well off the trail, hidden in the middle of a lava field. From my trail research I knew it was well worth the effort seeking out Minnie Scott Spring. She had been the wife of a wagon train captain who had led his party off of the Oregon Trail on a short-cut through here to reach the Willamette Valley.

And, at other times, place names can bring back memories as familiar as those of friends and family. At the top of Oppie Dildock Pass, I had my first glimpse of Mt. Hood in the distance ahead. Like Mt. Rainier, this peak had been named for a British Naval Admiral.

Sir Samuel Hood was a contemporary of Nelson, and commander of explorer George Vancouver, who had sent a party to ascend the Columbia River in 1792.

Interesting, but almost too far in the past to play a part in this story. What made it important, to me, is that Mt. Hood is my mountain! I gave half away to Bernice when we were married, but still consider it all mine. I was born in it's shadow. As a very bored schoolboy, I was tolerably happy when I could look through a classroom window, and imagine myself climbing this snowcapped beauty. As I grew up, it was my companion, my mentor, my guide. I had friends I shared the mountain with that now are remembered as a geographic feature, as Joe Leuthold On my mothers side—the Swiss part of me—I had a aunt that was the second European woman to have climbed the peak. Now the mountain was welcoming me home again.

My mother welcomed us too, a couple days later at Big Lake. We had a cache there at the Seventh Day Adventist Camp, and it really wasn't necessary for her to spoil us with lavish picnic baskets filled to overflowing. We were just glad to see her. And, others that joined our party.

We set up our tents in an improved campground, for once, with the horses picketed in a meadow outside the boundary. Soon campground neighbors were dropping in for coffee, conversation, and to help put away my mom's famous huckleberry pie.