Mt Hood Aerial

Last week as I made my way to Portland’s airport to start a trip to Denver, I saw a couple of planes taking off to the east. With a tad bit of anticipation, I made sure I was sitting on the right hand side of the aircraft when I checked in. You see, the east-bound departure from PDX to eastern destinations usually tracks right up the Columbia river and I was hoping to get a good view of Mt. Hood.

Sure enough, the angles worked out and we tracked straight down the Columbia. Here’s a picture I made a few minutes after we punched through 10,000':

Mt. Hood is in the foreground. It sure is good to see fresh snow up there again, at least a start to it. Mt. Jefferson is in the background and if you know your Oregon mountains, you can just make out Three Sisters on the horizon. In the foreground is, I believe, Hood River Valley with Highway 35 making its way south.

It would be nice to say that there’s an art to shooting through your typical Boeing or Airbus window, and there is a bit of art. But mostly it's a matter of how lucky you get. Most aircraft windows—especially in this day and age of constant airline cutbacks—are gungy. I was lucky enough to end up with a pretty clean window this time around. Clean enough to hold a fair amount of detail through all the layers of plexiglass. Here’s a close up view of the fire in the valley:

The only bummer about this shot is that I accidentally shot it in JPG format, not RAW. Having RAW data makes a big difference in post-processing these kinds of shots. But, even so, I’ll take it.

Usually, this is a sight you only see on arrival into Portland. If you want to maximize your chances of seeing Mt. Hood on your way into Portland, sit on the the left hand side of the aircraft when flying in from points east and on the right hand side when flying in from California.