Exploring the Mount Hood National Forest

For this report, I chose to focus on the Mount Hood National Forest, located east of Portland and south of the Columbia River Gorge. Mount Hood is a dormant volcano capped by glaciers, home to ski trails, alpine lakes and the famed Timberline Lodge from the 1980 film, “The Shining.” The peak was named in 1792 by Lieutenant William Broughton after Lord Samuel Hood, a respected admiral of the British Royal Navy (Bell 2019).

The forest is one of the most-visited in the United States, with over four million people exploring it annually. The area contains 170 developed recreation sites that offer a variety of activities including fishing, boating, hiking, rafting, camping, skiing, mountain biking, berry-picking, and mushroom collecting.

The national forest was established July 1, 1908. As of today, the total area of the forest is 1,067,043 acres, with 311,448 acres of wilderness and 345,300 acres of old growth forest remaining (Wesseler n.d.). The Mount Hood National Forest is considered to have a mediterranian climate with dry summers and wet, mild winters. The area receives around 68.8 inches of precipitation a year. Tree species in this forest include Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), western red cedar (Thuja plicata), noble fir (Abies procera), ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), western hemlock (Cicuta Douglasii), bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum), vine maple (Acer circinatum), black cottonwood (Populus trichcarpa), and the rare whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) (Bell 2019). The next portion of this project will collect observations and data regarding these tree species.

Bell, J. (2019). Mount Hood (Essay). The Oregon Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/mt_hood/#.XqcWZJNKi8o

Wesseler, C. (n.d.). Mount Hood National Forest. Oregon Wild. Retrieved from https://oregonwild.org/mount-hood-national-forest