That's Mt. Hood in the background.  As we started the day, we weren't sure that we'd see it.  We rode about a mile and a half to breakfast, then headed out about 7.  The clouds were low and moisture had condensed on the roadway and from drip from the trees.  The temperature couldn't have been more than 50. 

Here is the middle part of the first climb (2500 feet in 11 miles, 3-5% grades):


Here is the view a little bit further up that climb:


We made the summit (Government Camp at 3995 ft.) and took a breezy downhill of about 1000 vertical feet.  The clouds were almost on us and it was cold.  No sign of Mt. Hood.  Then the route kicked up again to this new "high point" of the trip so far.  We will go higher, more than twice this, in the next two weeks.


From this point it was downhill with some rollers (up and down small hills).  Eventually the clouds gave way to sun.  After cruising in the sun for a while all of a sudden when I glanced back in my mirror, there it was--Mt. Hood framed by the trees on both sides of the highway.  That's when I stopped and photographed Neal coming up behind me.  He doesn't ride with a mirror and had no idea what was behind him.  It would have been good to capture his expression when he realized what was behind us.  I gave him my camera and went back down the road a bit so we could get the above shot of me.  We were still going up hill and moved to the top to get this shot with the mountain above the trees:


This is Mt. Jefferson, seen from the high plain near the resort.  We'll see a lot more of it today and tomorrow.


This is shot from the bottom of the canyon leading to the resort.  The turnoff for the resort is about a mile beyond this point.