On June 27 - 29, Tian and I climbed Mt Jefferson via Jeff Park Glacier route. This is the hardest climb we have done so far and a very memorable one. Here is a brief account of the climb. Mount Jefferson is the second highest mountain in Oregon. However it can be rarely seen from Willamette Valley and it has mostly kept its anonymity even to avid climbers. We were not able to find many trip reports. It is a quite remote mountain. There is no road to its base. Its mysteriousness however doesn’t conceal any bit of its beauty.

We took off from the TH at 9, following the trail for about 3 miles and reached snow line. There was some challenges in route finding, but generally not too bad. The are supposedly several lakes at Jeff Park but they are all still frozen. From Jeff Park, we directly ascend the gully formed by the moraine of Jeff Park Glacier. This is the first time I have climbed Mt Jefferson and this mountain feels very exotic. It is nothing like any other valcano I have climbed. It is so remote. We didn’t encounter anyone on the trail. It feels that we have the whole mountain to ourselves. Once we are off the trail, we quickly climbed above the tree line. We begin to see interesting rock formations. It is probably due to the age of the volcano (Jefferson is a relatively old volcano in the Cascades), the rock formation looks very otherworldly.

We reached 7300 at around 1pm and found a flat spot on a rocky ridge, which obviously has been used as a camp by previous climbers before. A little down the other side of the ridge, we heard some running water so we went down and pumped from a mikly trickle flowing down from the glacier. A couple hours later another team of two climbers showed up and we shared the same camping site. It was their second attempt on this route. Two weeks earlier, they had to retreat from Jeff Park due to too much snow on the approach. It’s amazing how much difference it makes in two weeks. We discussed the route a little bit with them. They had a binocular with them. Tian and I decided to go up a little bit to check the route with the help of the binocular. We hiked up about 1000 feet and had a closer view of the two ’shrunds. The first one looks quite benign. The second one, which looks very questionable from below, however seems passable under closer inspection. There seems to be a snow bridge on the far right side close to Smith Rock. We sketched out the rough plan for the next morning and came back to camp. Day is almost at its longest of the year. The sun sets around 9pm. We layed in the tent and had a very nice sunset view of Jeff Park Glacier.

The next morning, we woke up at 3, roped up and left before 3. The slope quickly becomes steep, reaching about 40 - 45 degrees in places. We negotiated a few crevasses and reached the first shrund right about sunrise. Gosh, the rocks and snow look heavenly beautiful under the first sunshine.

We passed the first shrund on the left without any difficulty. The left side of the second shrund looks a little tempting but requires climbing on the rock with crampons. After some debate, we decided to abandon the idea and traverse to the right. It turns out that the snow bridge is fairly wide, but very steep, over 60 degrees, with fair amount of exposure. If you fall, you would fall all the way to the bottom of the first shrund. We placed a couple pickets and climbed up the snow bridge. Then we traversed to the left towards the knife ridge. This traverse is quite steep, 45 degrees in places. We running belayed most of it. Once on the knife ridge, we have the first view of the true summit and the route to the summit is visible. It looks very daunting. The route is on a sharp ridge with a couple thousand feet of exposure. My heart starts pounding hard not from the altitude but the exposure.

The first section of the knige ridge is not too bad, mostly class 4 scramble, with low 5th classes moves in places. We took off our crampons and unroped for this part. As the exposure increases and moves become more sketchy, we decided to rope up again and simul climb. Like any other volcano, the rocks are very loose. There is nothing you can trust. You gotta test everything before putting weight on it. The two climbers we met the previous day had been following our route all the way from the camp, keeping a distance of about 30 minutes from us. We we back on the snow again after traversing the knife ridge, where we put on crampons again and took out our ice tools. It turned out to be a very good idea to bring the ice tools.

From here, we need to cross the summit ridge to the base of the summit pinnacle. We traversed under the ridge trying to keep close to the ridge most of the time. However there are a few spots where we need to drop down a little bit to circumvent rocks. The slope is quite steep, reaching over 50 degrees in many places. We placed pickets in a few places. At the base of the pinnacle, we ran into another group climbing from West Rib. One of them was freaked out and decided to stay at the base. The other four pressed on after us. I later found out on cascadeclimbers.com that they are from Corvallis, where I lived 6 years. The summit block is supposed to be a class 4 scramble when it’s snow free, which is not the case now. We did some mixed climbing and even used an ice screw. At 11:15 am, a little more than 8 hours after we left camp, we reached the tiny craggy summit. The view here is simply fantastic. We can see everything from Rainier to Thielsen.

Half way done. Our plan is to descend on White Water Glacier. From previous TRs we have read, the route begins by rappeling to the south side and traversing to Red Saddle, from where one can drop to White Water Glacier. We found a sling just below the summit and rapped from there. Another rap sends us to the slope south of the summit. However, it doesn’t look like there is any way we can traverse to the north where White Water Glacier is. The slope is very very steep, with tremendous exposure. The snow is soft. We have a few options: traverse the steep slope, which I opposed; descend the slope onto Russel Glacier and find our way back to the camp; or go back to the summit ridge and descend to the north. We decided to go back t the summit ridge to check the condition. The worst scenario is to go back the same route we came up. At the summit ridge, we evaludated the terrain below us. It’s a quite steep slope, with White Water Glacier visible 1000 feet below us. It will be hard to descend, but still doable. So we did it. We placed pickets and down climbed very slowly. We finally reached a point where the snow is disrupted by a rock band. The rock is very loose. I managed to dislodge a watermelon size rock. That is scary. We evaluated the situation and didn’t want to take any risk. The rest of the route is visible from this point and we decided to drop gear at this point. We were prepared to drop gears, but didn’t want to do that too early. But at this point, we felt that we had enough gears to get out of the mountain. We brought 4 pickets with us and fair amount of slings. We deadmaned a picket and rapped over the rock band. We then descended a couple hundred feet to a relatively flat rock island. From there, only one big shrund stands in between us and the mild slope on White Water Glacier. We found a big solid rock (which is not abundant on this mountain!), slinged it with a webbing and a rap ring and rapped off. It is almost 7pm when we get down to the benign terrain. We still have a long traverse to the west to go to our camp. But the rest is straight-forward. We get back to camp just before dark at 9, 18 hours after we left camp. We are both exhausted. We cooked dinner and went to bed with the sun setting on Russel Glacier. The two climbers who were out company last night haven’t returned yet. We are a little worried. We took the liberty to check their tent and found their sleeping bags and pads. If they were stuck on the glacier, it’d be very tough for the to survive the night even if it’s a “warm” night.

Monday morning, we broke camp and left after the sun is shining on the snow so that we could plunge our way down on the snow slope. We had a little challenge finding the trail and didn’t get back to the car till around 11am. We were able to drive to Detroit where there is cell phone signal and called Yinan. Our original due time was noon. I made that phone call on 11:57. She was already very agitated and ready to call county sherif. Still concerned about the two climbers, we stopped at the ranger station and reported the issue to county sherif. A few minutes later we were contacted by a PMR (Portland Mountain Rescue) member who is in the area. He gathered some info and went to check the trailhead. He said he would notify me of any development. Later that afternoon when I was driving home from Portland, I got a couple phone calls from the sherif and one of the climbers. It turned out that they were in similar situation as us, couldn’t drop down to White Water Glacier safely, and decided to follow Milk Creek to the trailhead. They didn’t get to Milk Creek TH till midnight. They also had to retrieve their tent at a later time. I immediately called Tian and we were both relieved to know they are safe.

As a side note, soon after I left Portland on Monday afternoon, I witnessed a out-of-control car spinning and crashed into the median of I5 right in front of me. This is probably the most dangerous moment of the whole climb. I pulled over to the shoulder and called 911. Before I hung up, an ambulance showed up. I figured someone called before I did but it’s still amazing how fast they respond considering it’s out of urban area.