On Friday morning (let's say at 12:48am), a buddy of mine and I headed off to Jefferson Park, which is the area right near Mt. Jefferson, Oregon. I have been here before, but from a different entrance that was a bit of a longer hike (7 miles or so one way). In hindsight, we should've gone that way:).
So we get to the Breitenbush Trailhead at like 5am. The road was a rough and slow going 6 mile deal. Took maybe 50 minutes to get from the paved FR46 to the trailhead. No one was here, to my surprise, as this is a VERY popular place.
In any case, we started off in the dark, which is the norm. After a few miles, we reach a rough incline part of the trail. In the daylight, it blew us away at how crazy thing mountain looked and how high it was. It looked like something from a Tim Burton film.
Our goal was to get to Mt. Jefferson for a sunrise, but our gamble didn't quite pan out. She was submerged in a sea of low clouds (fog if you will), and we later hiked the grueling 5 miles into the park. I have NO CLUE as to where we were. We were trying to reach Russell and Scout Lakes, but we ended up in snow fields and many small ponds. NOTHING looked familiar, and I think we were on the east side of the mountain. The fog was crazy and I was getting sick (still kinda sick as of this post), and all I could think of was to lay down and take a nap.
In any case, the hike back was way quick (maybe an hour or so), and we hit up the town of Detroit for some food. I have to say that general store in Detroit (right off of the 22) has some amazing chicken tenders, and it is pretty cheap! After eating there, we heading east towards Proxy Falls. The fall colours along HWY 22 (Santiam Pass) and McKenzie pass are maybe at 70% as of 10/14/11.
We reached the Proxy Falls TH at around 4pm. I had been up for 30 hours straight at this point. I hadn't been to Proxy Falls in quite a while - maybe 2005 or 2006. As expected, there were a few cars at the trailhead. Now don't get me wrong, I like Proxy Falls, but it isn't my favorite falls. It doesn't "excite" me. I don't have an emotional connection with it, so to speak. It wouldn't place it in my top 10 waterfalls. Perhaps it is due to being easy to get to, or that there is really a lot of debris (garbage) in front of it.
After shooting this for maybe 30 minutes (I took maybe 15 shots or so), we headed up to the Dee Wright (or whatnot) observatory at the lava fields at the summit of HWY 242 for a possible sunset. Well, Three Fingered Jack and the rest of the Sisters' area was under the same fog (low clouds) that Mt. Jefferson was under 13 hours prior. I did however run into the guys shooting the helmets of the Ducks and Sun Devils for the ESPN promo. Kinda cool. I didn't realize this until I saw it aired last night, lol.
Here are two photos from this trip. Ironically, my "keeper" rate was quite low on this trip. Oh well, it is a passion of mine and had a good time - other than not feeling well.
0 comments:
Post a Comment