Wy'east: Bigger From NW Gresham Than You Think

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Gresham is, to some degree, defined by Wy'east. The mountain's European name -- Mount Hood -- is all over everything out there; the local community college and about half (it seems) of the businesses in town call themselves Mt Hood-this-or-that.

When you go out there, it's plain to see why. At about 11,245 feet, it is Oregon's tallest mountain, and cuts quite a figure (as I relentlessly document) from just about every viewpoint. Its shape on the horizon has become iconic, in a way, for the Portland Metropolitan Area. And, as big as it seems from Portland, from Gresham, which seems just over the foothills, it looms larger.

This is a view from the upper slopes of the hill Burnside Road descends on before it intersects with Eastman Parkway, NNW of the Gresham business district, on the edge of the desolate parking lot of the still-vacant Gresham K-Mart:

If the greens of the trees in the foreground look a little dark, that's a correct observation. The Brown Eyed Girl wanted to get some views as she too had her camera with her this day, and while the day was more or less fair (with a mugginess that attenuated our energy ... but, still fair) there was a very high overcast that filtered all the sunlight and caused the great mountain to nearly fade into imperceptibility. After I loaded the picture into GIMP and played around with color levels, however, I was able to make the mountain pop out and the foreground became rather artistically abstracted, somewhat.