Where Yarmiks Roam: Jefferson Park 2015 - presented by WWW of the WW

Every August I take a group of women on a backpacking trip to Jefferson Park (hereafter known as JP). It is my most favorite of favorite destinations. I hear you asking ,"why?". It isn't too far away - about 2 1/2 hours to the trail head. The length of the trail to our base camp is 5.1 miles and, even though it is all up hill, it isn't too steep, and once at base camp, there are two day hikes that hikers can do - one to Park Butte and the second to the Edge of Paradise.

Here is the group of intrepid hikers. Note that we are all clean.

Here is our mother/daughter pair.

Clair Couch - AKA Pocahontas - and Laurie Couch, Mountain Spirit. This was Laurie's very first backpacking event, and, yes, she was the one who came up with the idea of the camp names.

Here is the grandmother/granddaughter threesome:

Camille - Chipmunk or Chippy; Kim - Blue Butterfly; Natalie - Wildflower

By the way , you can call Camille Chippy from now on.

Finally the original tres amigos.

Kyna - Rainbow Trout; Blue Butterfly again; and Olga with her name from years ago - Huckleberry.

Heading up the trail

I wanted to go as far as Big View (my name for it) which is a good place to eat lunch, but we were too hungry to wait. So we lunched at "Hornet's Nest". See Olga in the background. Wonder what she is doing.

Poor Chippy. She went into the woods and, unfortunately, did not choose wisely and ended up disturbing a bazillion yellow jackets which then viciously attacked her With several adults helping, we quickly removed the clothes which were harboring the nasty insects. You can see her very sad face. I should have done a close-up of her hands. It looked like she had an African combination of chicken pox and measles

Viewer discretion advised for the next image. Photo placed out of chronological order, but it needed to be included in the 'injury 'category.

Can you guess who this is? Same boots, socks, and feet as last year, but surprisingly different results.

Just about a mile from JP, we came to the Whitewater River which is a glacially fed river (note white milky color of the cater) as opposed to the clear water of a snow melt river.

I think Laurie wanted to cool off more than anyone else.

She was actually frolicking. Who knew?

Finally we reached Scout Lake and headed right to our desired campsite. Unfortunately it seems that someone else desired that particular campsite too. Apparently those campers did not receive the memo that we have an eternal reservation for that site. I was going to relocate the offender's tent and gear, but Kyna who is more level headed than I prevailed, and we went to our alternate site.

Our kitchen cupboad

Because of the lack of snow pack (global warming or el nino-nina - you choose) the water level of Scout Lake was really low. I'll try not to dwell on and complain about this, but it was sad that our new hikers to JP didn't get to see the area in its fullest beauty.

I have many photos of Scout Lake and Mt Jefferson but I'll only post a few because, I mean, who wants to see dozens of photos of the same lake/mountain combo taken at different times of the day.

After dinner the activity was swimming (or dipping) in Scout Lake.

DAY TWO. This is when we do a day hike (fortunately with light day packs) to Park Butte for lunch at the Dairy Queen (no I'm kidding). It's about a four mile round trip. We leave the park and hike on the Pacific Crest Trail up to a ridge at an elevation of 7,000 ft. The trail is pretty steep and rocky.

On a tiny island in a small water less remnant of a pool.

Up the mountain side to Park Butte

We ate lunch at the top and decided to head down the slope the the the little lake (actually a tarn) seen in the previous photo. We have named it Kimol Lake. It has a real name, but we wanted to personalize it.

The tarn is usually mostly frozen over, but this year.....no snow, etc. The activity was swimming and it was possible.

Yep - Laurie and Claire were the first in the water. Natalie is testing the temp near the shore.

And me floating in an alpine paradise and Kyna pretending to be a mermaid.

It's hard to see the sun bathers on the rock, but they're there

Then we hiked cross country back to the trail and on to camp.

DAY THREE. This was our day to go to the Edge of Paradise. A bit of history...Several years ago Olga, Kyna, and I were exploring and discovered some bits of orange surveyors tape tied on to the tips of tree branches. We figured that some fire fighters putting out a small fire had left the tape so they could return if necessary. We followed the markers clear up the side of the mountain. Well, not all the way up the side but it was a long way up and really steep. We eventually found our way to a cliff with a fantastic view of JP. We could see everything! So we named the cliff, The Edge of Paradise and have returned to the site each year.

Up the hill