Jon Bell

The author of On Mount Hood: A Biography of Oregon's Perilous Peak, Jon Bell has been writing from his home base around Portland, Oregon, since the late 1990s. A freelance writer full-time, he is the co-author of the climbing guidebook, Ozone, and he has been a business writer for the Portland Tribune, an award-winning reporter and photographer, and a contributing writer to such publications as Backpacker, The Oregonian, Oregon Business, The Portland and Puget Sound Business Journals, Oregon Coast, The Rowing News, The Home Building News, and The Portland Physician Scribe.

After growing up in Mansfield, Ohio, he got a bachelor's degree in history from Michigan State University, then traveled extensively across the American West before landing in Portland. An avid outdoorsman, his first published pieces were about some of his backpacking and climbing excursions in the Northwest. He subsequently broadened his writing experience to include public education, government, business, politics, and people and places of interest for several different newspapers and magazines.

He lives in Lake Oswego, OR, with his wife, two children, and his black Lab.