The Newels of Timberline Lodge
My most favorite part of the lodge is the animal and bird newels. Lots of folks I've talked to have echoed the sentiment. To carve the newels they used recycled telephone poles. These newels are currently on my drawing board. I've laid out the book so it can serve as a walking tour showing each newel in the lodge starting on the ground floor walking up the stairs. Sorting the order of them was driving me crazy so I set myself up a cheat sheet of sorts to show me where they were located and to make sure I had them in the correct order. It later occurred to me it was the perfect hand held version for a walking tour so the drawings could be enjoyed in more than one way and for different reasons.

There were two of the newels I was at a loss for what animal they were meant to resemble because they were so worn. I made another trip back up to the lodge and by chance encountered a ranger who had an out of print book that listed what animals they had carved for the project. There were only a handful of pictures and none were the ones I needed but there was a complete list of all the newels. I had guessed one of the worn newels was a mole but I had thought to myself who would carve a mole? Turns out it was a mole.

There was one more newel that is so worn it is no longer recognizable. Over the past year I had taken about twenty pictures of it in varying lighting conditions from different angles trying to figure it out. While I was trying to figure it out I watched as people descended the stairs and grab it to turn the corner on the landing. Wear and tear has certainly taken a toll on this newel. Most of the recognizable features are gone. The book listed a beaver. By process of elimination it was the the beaver. Using what was left of it I restored the newel to what I think it would have looked like when it was originally installed.

As I work on the drawings I am super pleased how they are coming together. The book will be ready the first part of November - they're off at the printers now. If you would like to purchase one, preorders can be placed by emailing me and I will send you an invoice for payment when they are ready to ship. I will include a walking tour (on the right) for preorders. On the back side of the walking tour is the history of the lodge and the newels.

I'm excited about the project, can you tell? It's been a huge undertaking but it's coming together.

These links will be live on October 15th:

• Preorder the coloring book - $14.00
  54 pages. Orders placed by November 1st will also get a Walking Tour of the Newels.
  
  
• Order the Walking Tour of the Newels <= click - $5.00
  An 18" long card featuring all of the newels in the order they appear in the stairwells. Folds to 4" x 6" (see image on the right). The back side features a short history of the lodge and newels.
  
  
• The drawings are also available as individual all occassion notecards (blank inside). Printed on smooth card stock suitable for coloring - $3.00 each. They will be posted here soon.