Jefferson Park 9/27

[pdxgene]

Today was day 2 of the Late September Lake Tour with a nice quiet day at Burnt Lake yesterday to get things started. Today's destination was the lakes of Jefferson Park via the Whitewater Trail. When the worst complaint of the day was that the sun was too bright you can imagine it was a pretty great day. But a well placed cloud or two sure would've made for some great pictures. There was one field of wildflowers where you cross the creek about the 4 mile mark but the fall colors and the great Mt Jefferson reflections were the highlights of the day.

A little closer look at Mt Jefferson...

And though the colors and the sun and the mountain didn't line themselves up just right too often, sometimes they did ok...

Almost all the little mini-lakes had their own Mt Jefferson reflection waiting for someone to come along and see...

And of course what would the summer of '08 be without a patch of (what was once) snow right out in the middle of the sun in late September?

The fall colors lined the trails , it was hard to decide where to stop and take a picture..

And a couple more reflections of Mt Jefferson at 6,000'....

We really couldn't have asked for much of a better day for late September. It was just perfect up there..

If only Mt Jefferson had been over in this direction... sigh....

The rest of the pictures will be at http://picasaweb.google.com/pdxgene/JeffersonPark2 but I don't know if it'll be tonight. Day 3 coming from a new lake tomorrow!

[jeffstatt]

Gene,
What a great weather day you had, huh? I love that 2nd last photo. Any bugs left out there?

Hard to imagine we're a week into Fall and the leaves are changes when it just seems like some of Jeff Park finally got melted out from last season!

[pdxgene]

Maybe one or two mosquitoes and that was about it. Lots of butterflys though.

[greglief]

Gene, thank you very much for the trip report!

[jimsiff]

Gene,

What a great weekend for a trip to the mountains. There won't be too many more this year before snow starts to fly up there at Jeff Park. Were there many people on the trails in and around the area?

[pdxgene]

There was maybe 8-10 cars in the lot when we got there. We passed a couple groups going in and there were scattered tents set up in the prime locations (by the lakes). So there were people around but certainly nothing approaching a crowd.
Going out in the late afternoon there was a steady stream of backpackers heading in. It was really kind of surprising since it would almost be dark when they got there. And they'd have to spend time trying to find a spot.

[scrambler2]

Going out in the late afternoon there was a steady stream of backpackers heading in. It was really kind of surprising since it would almost be dark when they got there. And they'd have to spend time trying to find a spot.

But that's the how we weekend warriors get two nights out. With such a popular spot as this, hiking in by headlamp Friday night is a small price to pay. Its much better than hiking in Saturday hoping for a good spot.