Starting today we enter a section of Dad’s photo album that deals with hikes up peaks around the area. This first page in that section shows his first time up Marys Peak in 1926.

Marys Peak is, as you may know, the highest point in Oregon’s Coast Range mountains at 4,097 feet. On a clear day it is visible from pretty much anywhere in the mid-Willamette Valley with an unobstructed view to the west. Sometime in the 1930s a road was constructed to the summit, but in 1926 hiking was the way to get there.

One photo shows the group “at camp.” I don’t know where “camp” was or how far it was from camp to the summit. Was it so far that people camped overnight and started the climb first thing the next morning? Or was it just someplace to have a picnic before embarking on an afternoon jaunt up to the summit? Whatever the case, it’s clear from this photo that people did eat at camp.

Unfortunately I don’t know the names of any of these people. The out of focus person in the cap kneeling on the far right may be Uncle Irvine or Dad.

The other photo shows the group at the summit.

Such attire people hiked in, in those days! Neckties, even! I believe the two in the back in caps are Uncle Irvine (on the left) and Dad.

If you can identify anyone else in either of these photos, please speak up!

Addendum

I should have checked Dad’s diary before finalizing the above post. (He kept a diary from January 1925 to September 1926.) His diary entry for Sunday, June 20, 1926 includes this:

I went with Irvine & a group of people from Scravel Hill to Mary’s Peak. We had a fine day, could see the valley plainly & also the ocean.

This addresses several uncertainties:

• It establishes the date of this outing. (Remember what I said about my always seeking a more accurate chronology? ;–) The date will become significant in comparing this ascent of Marys Peak with Dad’s second.
• It confirms that Uncle Irvine was with Dad on this outing.
• It establishes that this was a day trip and not an overnight trip. (So apparently “camp” was more of a picnic site.)
• It suggests that we are not likely to identify any of the other people in the group even by inference, since it isn’t a group Dad was involved with on other occasions.