Lost Lake is a very popular lake in Mount Hood National Forest. It is located Hood River, just about 1.5 hours East of Portland. Lost Lake is a privately owned area and thus there is a day time access fee required. Lost Lake is usually full of people during the day time hours in the summer, but it is also a paradise for stargazing lovers at night.
We love to take Milkyway photos at Lost Lake at night since it is close by and have minimal light pollution. We got there on Friday and arrived at Lost Lake around 9:30PM at night. The sun has already set and we could barely see anything when driving on the road.
As we settle down and put up the camera and start taking photos, we noticed the sky had some unusual colours. There were colours of pink and green in the sky. Initially we thought this was caused by the smog in the air or there was a large concert near by. We were also suspecting that maybe something was wrong with your camera lens or camera sensor. Then after an hour, we started noticing rays of light coming down from the sky and that was when we started to realize this light was aurora.
The appearance of aurora was a shocking surprise to us. We didn't read the news and we weren't aware of this happening. This was an awesome surprise since we have never seen aurora before and it would be our first time taking the photos. This would also mean that we wouldn't be able to take the photo of Milkyway because the sky was too bright.
Throughout the night, the aurora took form in many different shapes. Sometimes it was in a form of light rays coming down, sometimes it was just in a form of coloured fog, and sometimes it was in a form of giant dough. We were able to capture all these on the camera. However, it was not as visible through our nakes eyes. We were only seeing grayish colour in the sky.
This year's visit to Lost Lake was truly amazing. We highly recommend to visit Lost Lake a night during the summer to enjoy stargazing. It will not disappoint.