north ridge of Jefferson

[gratefuled]

I'm looking attempting Jefferson again. I wasn't up for soloing Jeff Park galcier last July. My friend suggests the North ridge. Anyone out there done this? What about present access at whitewater TH? Thanks for info. I'll be on the south side of Hood again next Friday. Hopefully it won't be the slush fest that I expect

[John Frieh]

I rather swim in slush any day than climb the world's tallest gravel pile.

[kurthicks]

i remember the NR looking like a horrible chossfest. i do believe that Oregon High has a decent description of it though. go do the Jeff park glacier early and it's a cruise. that trailhead is pretty low, so it might be accessible already.

[Dean_Lowery]

I've been to over 9000 ft on NR and it gets real nasty after that (rockfall). I'm going to try from the west side this year.

[Snowman_Jim]

This was one of the first routes I ever did in Oregon, probably about 8-9 years ago. Like the majority of what I've done it was solo.

 

Since it was a long time now I don't remember too much detail. Being new to the entire range I made a few errors. I did this in early to mid July which worked out ok that year but was a bit on the late side. I also followed the ridge beginning down very low and ended up at the top of a notch which required a rappel. (I was one move away from traversing to the notch but every time I grabbed the necessary boulder anywhere it peeled off in my hand. Thus the resort to a rappel.)

 

As I recall it was still mostly snow but getting wet and soft. In one place a foot stance gave way and a basketball sized rock took off down the mountain. But that doesn't seem all that unusual for Jefferson via most routes.

 

I descended the SE ridge but on another climb up some variation of the east face we met a solo climber from Colorado who ascended and descended the north ridge, with skis stashed on Jeff Park glacier. That was fairly late too, probably July. I believe he may have had 2 ice climbing tools, I'm sure I would have used one axe. But I didn't downclimb the route either.

 

The week after I did this there was a fatality involving a solo climber via the North Ridge. However, the fall apparently occurred on the summit ridgeline and not actually on the N ridge route. From the summit log or something they seemed to know the guy had made the summit and had some concern about getting back down.

 

After so much time I don't really remember it as one of the more noteworthy routes I've done but it was a good climb and worthwhile.

 

Feel free to contact me if you want any more information, although I'm not too sure I can recall much more than I've summarized here.

 

Jim