By ESTHER K. SMITH
News staff writer
September 5, 2007

Peter Marbach will be signing copies of his latest book, “Mount Hood,” during First Friday Sept. 7 at Waucoma Bookstore.

The book, part of Graphic Arts Books’ “Portrait of a Place” series, is a smaller and more economical version of the book he and the Hood River News’ Janet Cook did together in 2005 — but without Cook’s text and with about a dozen new photos added, he said.

One of the new photos was especially rewarding for him to capture a photo of some Japanese carvings on a boulder high on Mount Hood.

“I had heard a legend, or rumor, that somewhere at around 9,000 feet there was an inscription on a boulder from someone in Japan,” Marbach said. “It took me three tries to find it; it was way, way high up in the middle of a boulder field.

“I had just about given up on finding it,” he said. “I was hiking up there with a friend and we sat down to rest — and there it was. It was like one of those gifts; like ‘third time’s a charm’.”

Marbach also said that the families of the three climbers who disappeared on the flanks of Mount Hood last year, Jerry “Nikko” Cooke, Brian Hall and Kelly James, found some comfort in the images of the book during a visit Marbach made during the time of the search. He had been invited by a friend of the families, who was familiar with his work, to share his photos with them.

“It was really healing for them — and for me,” Marbach said. “One of the family members told me, ‘Before meeting with you I considered Mount Hood as “the beast,” but I don’t feel that way anymore.’ I was trying to show them the positive side of the mountain.”