Thread: TR: Mellowing Out On Mt. Jefferson

The combination of a great weather forecast, and being busy the next two weekends, had me longing for a long weekend trip into the Oregon Cascades (I'm working in PDX for three more weeks before returning to Bellingham).  Eyeing a location I hadn't been to before, I settled on the Northwest facing Jefferson Park Glacier.  I left Portland Friday afternoon under clearing skies, stoked to check out a new area and soak up some vitamin D.  

I was able to drive within ~3.5 miles of trailhead where a snowbank near Cheat Creek blocked the road.  



Luckily after less than 20 minutes of road walking I hit continuous snow (and saw a black bear), and skinned the rest of the way to the summer trailhead, where I made camp for the evening.  






I more or less followed the route of the trail towards Jefferson Park, and made decent time while enjoying the Jeffersonian views.  








I made camp in the basin below Jefferson Park proper lacking motivation and energy to push the additional mile.  After a much needed lunch I headed up through the forest to the glacier proper.





Once gaining the moraine, the views of upper glacier came into clear view.  The bergshrunds looked pretty filled in giving me hope I could ski from the high saddle.  



However, as I gained elevation the corn gave way to little water ice chicken heads from what must've been freezing rain during last week's wetter weather.  This made skinning a slippery proposition, so I switched to crampons and made steady progress despite tired legs towards the saddle.



The less than ideal ski conditions and somewhat exposed conditions led me to the conclusion stopping ~100' shy of the saddle would be advisable.  Views to the North:



Rime:



After the long haul in I was pretty stoked to ski the 4000' back to camp.

Evidence I actually did ski:





And was pretty pleased with myself.



The lower slopes became progressively stickier as elevation was lost, but not unenjoyably so.  Back at camp more food was eaten:



I enjoyed the awesome evening light and sunset, before calling it a night.





The next morning I thought about skiing something else in the vicinity, but tired legs, warming temps and a decent amount of distance between me and the car had me packing up and heading back by 7:15.  The trip out was warm and getting warmer, with any south facing snow rotten to the core (pole length plus penetration).  

Parting shot of Jeff:



I was able to ski/pole/tele-fit to with in 20 minutes of the car (no skins needed).  The total time out was less than 4 hours and really not that much work all things considered.  



Overall it was a really satisfying solo trip, felt great to see some new Oregon country and get some good skiing in to boot.  

Jefferson from Detroit Lake:

Damn the Cascades are beautiful! Awesome trip man!

Awesome TR. Looks like a blast of a solo trip.

Nice. I've wanted to ski Jeff for a while. Looks like a good time.

Yeah buddy!

love it when a washingtonian crushes one of the other presidents.
great looking pics and tr of your mellow journey, thanks for sharing
bobby

I like it. I like it a lot.

That parting shot is beautiful. Looks like a fun trip. I have been finding that exploration trips can be a hell of a lot of fun.

Man that was awesome. I particularly like your first photo of the peak.

Great TR! Jeff's been on the list for years, haven't made it happen yet. Solid work!

Groovy. Jefferson is as wild as it gets in Oregon.

Way to get some, B. Sorry I couldn't make this one, lets get out soon.

Wait, shit, it's raining again...

Worthy...

Glorious...nicely done!

wow looks like quite the amazing outing!
great pics of some beautiful scenery...nice work and thanks for sharing

So, you're saying you had more snow than we did last year on August 20?







Seriously though, very cool trip, and loved seeing the pictures with so much snow. (For some odd reason I remember the trailhead layout very well, so seeing everything buried there was especially fun.)

One question though:

Originally Posted by Power_Sauce

I more or less followed the route of the trail towards Jefferson Park, and made decent time while enjoying the Jeffersonian views.

I recall the switchbacks at the beginning, then lots of long traverse across very steep slopes. With the trail clear, they were completely mindless, as the grading was excellent.
But with snow, seemed like avalanche danger from the pitch above (I think to the left, when approaching the mountain) would be a major concern?

This picture might have been from one of those stretches:

Originally Posted by Jonathan S.

One question though:

I recall the switchbacks at the beginning, then lots of long traverse across very steep slopes. With the trail clear, they were completely mindless, as the grading was excellent.
But with snow, seemed like avalanche danger from the pitch above (I think to the left, when approaching the mountain) would be a major concern?

Having never hiked the trail in summer, I'm not exactly sure of the slope you're referring to given I'm not sure I was on the trail the entire time. My route generally went climbers right from the parking lot through old/medium growth forest most of the way up to the ridge. Given the size of the trees and reasonably consolidated snowpack (at least on that aspect and time of day - early morning) avi danger wasn't a big concern for me.

Thanks for sharing the photos, it's definitely cool to get see the difference bewteen summer and spring.

Maybe you stayed much lower than we did, thereby avoiding that slope altogether?

In the route map below, look at the waypoint for "WaterRefill" and then follow the trail to the West -- from there up to that weird "+" sign, the summer hiking trail is hugging what looks like a highly avy-prone slope.

Gotcha. Yeah, crossing those slopes on the way out was part of the reason I left early on Sunday. Even at 7:30 AM they were a mushy mess (this is where I had pole length plus penetration into the snowpack). That being said I stayed reasonably high up the ridge in that section , perhaps above the summer trail, traversing through sparse-ish trees, and never felt that the slope was that exposed.

Interesting, thanks.
I had of course been passing the time (and oh how much time there was to pass on that long roundtrip hike!) fantasizing about skinning on that summer trail, but that one section gave me pause.

BTW, part of why I love your Jefferson TR so much, is that out here we have a Mount Washington with a nearly adjacent Mount Jefferson and Mount Adams. Now of course everyone skis the Southwest Chutes on "your" Mount Adams each spring or early summer. But "your" Jefferson and Washington are much more obscure, and I really want to ski Washington one of these years so as to complete a Bicoastal Presidential Trifecta!

(BTW, "our" Mount Washington is still doing okay, by my hut trip this past week to our more obscure Jefferson and Adams this past week had only two good 1k+ skiable lines left: https://picasaweb.google.com/1183643...19NorthernPrez)

Great TR. Nice work!