Found under the moss, brought back by hand.
The Cascara was a forgotten mountain golf course when Nathan and Claire Vance walked it in 2012. Three years later it opened again as the kind of place they had always wanted to stay.
A course the forest had nearly taken back.
Nathan and Claire Vance were not looking for a resort. They were looking for a cabin, driving the Mount Hood corridor on a wet March weekend, when a hand-lettered auction sign turned them up a gravel road in Welches. What they found was an old course from the 1920s that had sat closed for the better part of a decade. The fairways had gone to moss and fern, alders had seeded across the seventh, and the roof of the lodge let the rain straight through onto the fir floor.
Nathan had grown up caddying on public tracks around Sandy. Claire had run a small inn on the coast. They stood in the leaking great room, looked at each other, and drove home to Portland already arguing about how to pay for it.
Three years, and the hearth that started it.
The restoration took three winters and most of what they had. Crews from the valley rebuilt the lodge roof, jacked the sagging porch back to level, and pulled a century of paint off the fir beams by hand. Wherever they could keep the original, they kept it.
The heart of the whole project was the 1928 stone hearth in what is now the Rivergrass dining room. It had been bricked over and hidden behind drywall. When the crew opened the wall and found the river rock intact, the Vances stopped the demolition and built the restaurant around it instead. It still throws heat on winter nights.
The course came back the same way. Rather than redraw it, they cleared the original routing, rebuilt the greens to run firm and true, and let the firs keep doing the defending they were planted to do. The Cascara reopened in the spring of 2015.
How we run the place.
Six ideas the Vances wrote down during the restoration, and still argue over when a decision gets hard.
Small on purpose
Fifty-four rooms and cabins, tee times kept spaced, a dining room that never rushes you out. We would rather be full and calm than big and busy.
Keep it local
Our cooks buy from the valley, our crews come from Sandy and Welches, and the beer on tap is poured within an hour's drive. The mountain feeds the mountain.
The land first
We never fought the ground the course was given. The river, the old growth, and the meadow set the terms here, and we build quietly around them.
Unhurried
A round you can walk, a soak with nowhere to be, a dinner that comes in slow courses. If you leave feeling like you had more time than you paid for, we did it right.
Built by hand
We restored this place ourselves, and we still fix most of it ourselves. When something wears out we mend it before we replace it. It shows, and we like that it shows.
Everyone at the fire
Muddy golf boots in the tavern, kids on the short course, a first-timer at the spa. You do not have to know the rules to feel at home at The Cascara.
On the Salmon River, in the Mount Hood corridor.
The Cascara sits at 68120 E Salmon River Road in Welches, Oregon, right where the old resort villages string along Highway 26 below the mountain. We are about 75 minutes east of Portland, an easy drive up through Sandy and Zigzag, and close enough to the pass that skiers can be on the snow in twenty minutes.
We know this corner of the mountain well, and we are glad to point guests toward the rest of it: the trailheads above Rhododendron, the orchards and cider houses over in Hood River, the waterfalls off the old highway, and Government Camp when the lifts are spinning. Tell the front desk what you are after and we will send you the right way.
Ask us how to get hereFind us on the mountain
68120 E Salmon River Road, Welches, OR 97067
About 75 minutes east on Highway 26, through Sandy and Zigzag
Government Camp, Rhododendron, Zigzag, Sandy, and Hood River
(541) 329-9273
This About page is a demo built by Rooted Coast Design to show how a family-run resort can tell its real story on a fast, hand-coded site. Yours would be built the same way, from scratch, around your own history.
See Rooted Coast DesignLooked after, and looked at.
A few of the marks we are proud of, and the programs that keep us honest about the land we borrowed.
Salmon-Safe certified
Course and grounds managed to protect the Salmon River watershed and the fish it is named for.
Oregon Green Lodging
Recognized by the state program for water, waste, and energy practices across the lodge and cabins.
Regional guest favorite
Named a favorite mountain stay by Pacific Northwest travel readers three years running.
Audubon sanctuary
An Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary program member for wildlife habitat on the course.
Mount Hood chamber member
A proud member of the local corridor chamber, and a year-round employer of valley residents.
Historic restoration
The 1928 lodge and hearth restored in keeping with local historic guidance for the corridor.
You can feel that someone loved this place back to life. It is in every beam and every quiet corner.
The story reads better from a porch chair.
Come up the mountain, walk the course the Vances saved, and settle in by the 1928 hearth. We will hold a room by the river.