Trying Mt. Hood Again

The full moon aligning with Mt. Hood

A couple of times a year, the full moon rises right behind Mt. Hood. There are some beautiful pictures of that event online and I have tried several times so far to capture it. A really nice spot to take this picture from is Jonsrud Viewpoint in Sandy, Oregon. It is a tiny little spot on top of a bluff right above the Sandy river with an unobstructed view of Mt. Hood. If the weather cooperates. And often it does not.

The view from Jonsrud Viewpoint, Sandy river below, and Mt. Hood on the horizon.

Clearoutside.com had predicted a cloudless sky for last Friday and I made the two-hour drive through rush-hour traffic. Due to moon rise timing over Mt. Hood, it is always rush-hour when I try to take this picture. When I got there a woman told me that it had been perfectly clear until about a half hour ago when the haze you see at the base of Mt. Hood in the picture above moved in. It took almost twenty minutes for the moon to clear that haze and rise above it.

Full moon near Mt. Hood

I got some nice Fall colors and the moon looks cool, but Mt. Hood is barely visible. The whole idea is to wait for a day when the moon rises near that position but the sun has not set yet and is still lighting up the face of Mt. Hood. That requires good weather around Mt. Hood but also behind me so the setting sun is not obscured. Those conditions are difficult to align. I had tried last month too, but about an hour before moon rise, lots of clouds moved in. By the time the moon became visible, it was almost completely dark.

These clouds were not there an hour earlier during my attempt in September.

The peak of Mt. Hood is about 30 miles from Jonsrud Viewpoint and 50 miles from Pittock Mansion, another nice spot to see the mountain from Portland. On many days, Oregon weather hides the mountain completely. This happened to me September last year when I tried from Pittock Mansion. The following day the moon was rising after sunset and I went to Jonsrud again, hoping for better weather. The weather worked out, but the timing was a day off.

A photoshopped version from last year

Once it gets dark, Mt. Hood is no longer lit up and the moon appears much brighter, making it difficult to photograph the scene. The above picture is stitched together from multiple images from that evening. I made the moon bigger to overcome my disappointment.

Whenever the full moon rise aligns with Mt. Hood like that, and the weather is not horrible, you will find fellow photographers at Jonsrud and Pittock mansion, trying to get that perfect picture. Twice now, somebody held a class there and I overheard people talking from where they had come from to learn and to take pictures of Portland and surroundings. Compared to them, my two-hour drive is nothing, but I am getting tired of doing it. But I'll probably try again ;-)