Mount Jefferson, Oregon

Bob and Nabeel hiked up the trail toward Pamela Lake, talking about rock climbing. I hung back taking photos of the raging Cascade creek and abundant trilliums. From time to time, I would hurry up and catch up to find out that their conversation had moved from Yosemite on to Smith Rocks or New Hampshire's White Mountains. I stopped for another trillium and had the woods to myself again.

We followed the zigzags in the trail network, working our way uphill and traversing along with the Pacific Crest Trail. These were my first few steps on this great long distance route from Mexico to Canada. However, we quickly turned right following another raging creek abandoning the trails once and for all.

Crossing this stream would be our first adventure. Bob located a large boulder to perch and then leap across on. Nabeel followed suit. I scouted the leap a little more, and decided to jump across without using the boulder's elevation. I thought I'd found a simpler and safer route, but I ended up with several ounces of glacial melt in my plastic boots.

Our next challenge consisted in literally whacking bushes to force our heavily laden selves up and through a thicket of Pacific Northwest growth. The footing improved somewhat afterwards, when we progressed from roots and branches to small boulders and sandy slopes.

Finally, we broke above the fading tree line and encountered smooth, terrain-leveling snow. Our first clear views of Mount Jefferson lead us onward to our camp between a few hearty pines on a rounded snow covered ridge. We took turns leveling a platform in the snow for the tent, and then set about trading lies and sharing dinner.

I watched a mass of black clouds move in from the north, cutting off our views of the sunset and Mount Jefferson. A clear and cold night would have been in our favor, as we needed the snow to firm up if we were going to climb 4,000 feet of snow.

At 10pm collective moan escaped all three sleeping bags when a heavy rain began to rattle on the tent's fly.

"And if it's raining, it's time to retreat." - Mark Twight

Hoping for the best, we woke up in the dark during a light sprinkle and were dismayed to find the snow still soft. Our ice axes pulled loose from the snow far too easily. Maybe the conditions will be better higher up?

By sunrise we still hadn't found firm snow. We did find views of Three Fingered Jack and Mount Washington over the valley's cloud layer. But we also found breaking crusts and soft snow that let us sink to our knees. Further progress would endanger our return, so we turned back with 2,000 feet still left unclimbed. Our descent was rapid, if mushy, but we all felt safer returning to more level ground.

After a second round of hot tea, we argued over who had to pack out the dripping wet tent fly and prepared to descend. The vegetative-crux was even more dicy than before, after last night's rain all the branches were soaked and slippery. I know my pants showed mud stains of several slips that landed on my butt and were arrested by grabbing branches.

We continued our retreat on to Bend and soothed our defeat with a day rock climbing on the bright walls of Smith Rock.