Timberline Lodge, Mt. Hood, Oregon - Page 2

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Timberline Lodge, Mt. Hood, Oregon - Page 3

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Timberline Lodge, Mt. Hood, Oregon - Page 4

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Most of the former ground floor level of the Head House is now taken up by the Rachel Griffin Historic Exhibition Center, a free museum. There are additional exhibits in the adjacent hallways so be sure to walk around. The chairs in this photo are wrought iron and wood, with rawhide straps for seats. The rawhide has been replaced, but otherwise they are the original furniture hand-made for the Lodge. A non-profit group called Friends of Timberline supports the Lodge and provides funding (and sometimes the labor) to restore, replace and preserve the Lodge and its treasures.

Timberline Lodge, Mt. Hood, Oregon - Page 5

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This is a panoramic photo of the Barlow Room taken from one corner to show all 9 panels of the "Calendar of Mountain Sports". The panels were created in 1937 using linoleum as the medium, by artist Douglas Lynch. Color on the panels was created using oil paint mixed in shellac and applied in multiple layers. It is very different from anything I have ever seen.

Timberline Lodge, Mt. Hood, Oregon - Page 6

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This is the comfortable main lounge, located on the 1st floor of the Timberline Lodge Head House. The furniture is original, it was custom built for the Lodge in a WPA shop in Portland, Oregon and shipped up to the Lodge. This photo is a bit confusing as it was taken at the back of the room, facing south. The front door of the Lodge is on the far side hidden from view by the fireplace. The east wing and the Cascade Dining Room is to the left in this photo, to the right is the west wing guest rooms. The wood floors are Oregon white oak. If you click on the photo to display the enlarged version and look close you will notice what looks like an alligator skin pattern in the wood beam above the fireplace. Those patterns are blade marks left by the broadaxe and adz (adze) that were used to cut the beam.

Timberline Lodge, Mt. Hood, Oregon - Page 7

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Going up to the 2nd floor (which is actually 3 floors up) we find a mezzanine wraps around the entire perimeter of the Head House. Again, notice the huge fir beams and posts. Six massive upright posts support the roof of the Head House (in this photo one of them is just to the left of the bright windows.) They are Ponderosa Pine, each hand cut from a single tree harvested from the local forest lower on the mountain. They were shaped by hand using a broadaxe and adz. On the 2nd floor the east and west wings contain guest rooms.

The mezzanine level has several of these writing nooks with hand made writing desks. (Writing desks for guest's use are a common feature in classic old hotels.) The lithograph on the wall is "The Fog Lifts" by Raymond Skolfield and while from the depression Era, it is not original to the Lodge. The alcove doorway is yet another variation on the Timberline Arch.

View across the mezzanine in early evening. Here you can see the Ram's Head Bar on the far side of the mezzanine. The bar is not original (the Lodge was designed without a bar) and is built into what was originally an observatory.  (Similar to the one you can see with the orange curtains directly below it.) Late evening light reflecting on the snow creates the blue coloration in the windows behind the bar. Notice that no light is coming through the gaps in the curtains of the observatory below the bar on the 1st floor, because it is below the snow level.

Perhaps the coolest spot in the Timberline Lodge is the Mt Jefferson Alcove on the south side of the Mezzanine (2nd floor.) At night there is a bright light outside above the window than illuminates the snow. When the snow blows and swirls up in front of the glass it looks like a huge snow-globe. Add a warm cup of Timberline's famous hot chocolate and you're all set!  (It is absolutely the best hot chocolate I've ever had.)  The window tables are very popular, you may have to wait a while.

Timberline Hot Chocolate. It's even better than it looks!!

This is the daytime view from the Jefferson Alcove on the Mezzanine level (Ram's Head Bar) of Timberline Lodge. Mt. Jefferson is the mountain on the left side in the distance. The pole hanging down in the middle of the window is a buttress, it supports the center of the large pane of glass to keep it from breaking during storms. The severe weather on the exposed mountain-side means additional measures such as the buttressed windows are necessary. The original design for the lodge called for 3 side-by-side windows in this space, but they were switched to this single picture window after figuring out a way to keep it from breaking.



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Timberline Lodge, Mt. Hood, Oregon - Page 8

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Here's a photo of the outside of Timberline with the location of the Mt. Jefferson alcove window shown (alcove window is described on previous page.) You can see how the front of the Lodge catches the wind blown snow and it builds up to the base of the window.  If you want a view in the winter, ask for a 3rd floor room.  Otherwise the only view from your room may be of the snow outside piled up against the window.

Timberline Lodge, Mt. Hood, Oregon - Page 9

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Simple chairs found in a guest room, probably original furnishing, hand made using simple tools. You can see the hand made drapes next to the chair in this photo.

Timberline Lodge, Mt. Hood, Oregon - Page 10

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Here you can see the hearth and fireplace in one of the fireplace suites. The fireplace suites have hardwood floors and hand-looped rugs. I believe the artwork in these rooms is also original. Yes, the fireplace works and burns wood.

Timberline Lodge, Mt. Hood, Oregon - Page 11

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These photos are out-takes, ones that didn't make it into our photo tour. When creating a hotel tour we generally take well over 100 photos of the hotel and grounds. That's a few more than most folks want to see, so we try to edit the tour to a more reasonable number. Unfortunately that leaves a lot of interesting photos that don't make the cut. So we are posting some of those photos here and on the next page for you to look at if you have time and interest.

Newel Posts:

Timberline Lodge is famous for its carved newel posts, particularly the 12 posts carved into animals. A newel post is the upright post that anchors the top or bottom of a stair handrail. At the Timberline Lodge the builders went to great lengths to combine art with architecture. The photo above is a newel post on the back stairway on the west end of the lodge.  This back-stair newel posts features less expensive to carve geometric patterns (photo above.)