Meet Mount. Jefferson on the Cascade Mountain range here in Oregon! Mount Jefferson just happens to also be our counties name sake, Jefferson County Oregon.
Being in Bend Oregon I recall telling the lady just point me in the direction of our mountain and I can get us home ha! Not being from the area she gave me a strange look until I said, "There our mountain is!! Just point the truck in that direction and we will get home just fine"!
Folks who have visited or live in our part of Oregon know we can see 5+ mountains and at least one is a butte. As we joke here at home, who wants to ski a butt...so they changed that ones name to Mountain so and so. Of course not being a mountain if that is one wants to get technical.
On this particular day I got a couple shots of Jefferson. This one was from the frozen pond on one of my walks here in town.
The old fence posts was the next one I shot. The land here is fantastic for growing!! Years and years of volcanic activity, past eruptions has made our soil some of the best in Oregon! Why to, building permits can be a interesting thing to get if the land has been put aside as farm land! One of the saddest things to see is when such great farm land has been tore up for a house to be built on.
Mount Jefferson is the second highest highest mountain here in my state of Oregon. It is rugged, and it is said one of the hard volcano to reach. Some folks who keep up with my photography, blogs etc. have seen photographs of our hikes into the Mount. Jefferson wilderness area. The poor dogs and our boots walking through the volcanic rock is entertaining at best! Of course we have only hiked this side of the mountain though too. I have no clue what the other side of the mountain is like to hike?
This is the mountain I would draw as a child all the time! I have always liked Mount Jefferson..... though being from Oregon it is hard not to like our mountain range here. It is home. I have seen Colorado, Wyoming, Washington have not been to Alaska yet .... however, when I do see these other mountains they just are not the same, they are not home.
Mount Jefferson seams to always have snow up there. I look out my window through the trees and there is snow capped Jefferson! Mount Jefferson has been photographed so much...... even by me!
I tell you what though, if you want to hike this mountain from this side.... just be careful ! Not like there are stores on every corner, or roads for that matter. I spoke to someone a while back who said there is a road on the other side of the mountain he drives up there to the highest point he can..... need to check that out some day? However, getting Guy to go to the other side of the Cascades can be entertaining all on its own haha! Guy claims he can not see over there due to all the trees haha!
We get as far as the Cascades themselves and well, that is all she wrote. So many things to see and do in the Cascades we rarely get to all the cities and towns on the other side which most folks know of when they do come to Oregon. Rarely making the drive over here which I do not understand at all......
I recall the drives to Reno Nevada as a child. We would drive through the area and Crooked River Bob was such a huge deal that father had to see the ranch!! Of course roads were not so good back then as they are now. Bend and Redmond were just bumps in the road..... of course I loved anything that was of the animal world so I loved the area!! I thought it would be neat to move over here and have some land.... land was reasonably priced back then for folks really did not know of the views we had here in Oregon as they have now a days. Plus there were not the stores, shops etc.. there are now.
If I could guess as to what the biggest money draw here is other then outdoor activities it is probably alcohol? We have many places making alcoholic beverages on this side of the mountain.
I would say if you are coming over here to hike Mount Jefferson give yourself a couple days at least. We are big on day hikes, sometimes staying over night in the Mount Jefferson Wilderness area (111,177 acres). Guy jokes why should he sleep on the ground when he has a perfectly good bed at home? It does not take us long to get to the mountains here, so his logic is hard to argue with. Being something for your dogs if you are hiking with them!! It takes quite a lot more energy to go around the lava rock that takes over much of the trails that, well the one we like to take is not maintained real well. Oh and if you have horses there are corrals to put them in while you are getting ready to go..... perhaps not everywhere?? So check before heading over. Of course every time we have been up there we have never ran into anyone, even though we seen their cars and/or livestock trailers.
OMG everyone needs to bring a camera, a cheepy if nothing else! You can pick a cheepy camera up in Madras Oregon for hardly nothing.....at the bimart I seen them anyhoo. We do not get to Bend or Redmond all that much, I am sure they have more there?
What Mount Jefferson has the name sake wilderness area, some of it is the reservation (Warm Springs),Deschutes, um Willamette..... that is 4. Most of this is national land, open to all however I am not sure about the Warm Springs land? I Joke saying you can throw a rock around here and it can land on the Warm Springs land. That is governed by the federal government and the feds seam to have a whole different rule book they go by.
There is a lot of reading out there of this mountain if you choose to read up on it..... thank you for coming by and seeing the photographs of the walk I took on this day here in our town in the high desert of Oregon!
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