Hiking Around Mount Jefferson

In early September (6-8) my brothers and I took our annual All Brothers Hike aka ABH. We've been doing these 3 day hikes for about 7 years, and have done hikes in Idaho, Washington and Oregon. This year we hiked up to the base of Mount Jefferson in Oregon. We look forward to this hike all year!

On Wednesday Sept. 5th I picked up Logan from the train station, and Vaughn (bro-in-law) and Kelly from the airport. Every Wednesday night I play basketball at the church so I brought the brothers along... We had a great time playing together, except on the last game I came down on my ankle and sprained it really bad. Later that night (really Thursday morning at 2am or so, Birch and Andrew arrived at my house.

My ankle was really sore Thursday morning, so I had Birch (the physical therapist) wrap it up before we took off for the mountain. We got to the mountain around 10:30am and headed on our way. Fifteen minutes into the hike Vaughn said the back of his ankle was hurting so we stopped so he could put on a piece of duct tape to help protect it. Unfortunately nothing could be done to stop the damage. His boot relentlessly hacked up his ankle the whole three days.

On both Friday and Saturday morning we got up between 4:30 and 5:00 am so we could hike to the top of the nearest peak and watch the sunrise. It is sure cool to watch the first rays of the sun peak over the horizon, crawl down Mount Jefferson and finally come to rest on us. Looking at Mt. Jefferson and the valley’s below while the sun rises always inspires us to sing. Last year Birch made us all small hymnals that we carry with us on our hikes, so we opened them up and sang – in harmony – a few hymns.

On our last day we stayed near a lake and most of us took a dip. We also had a mean Frisbee competition. The young boys, Logan, Kelly and Andrew, challenged the older boys, Birch, me and Vaughn. We played a game that was a mix between H.O.R.S.E (basketball) and Frisbee golf. Example: throw the Frisbee around a stump, through a clump of trees around a rock and then hit another tree. It was pretty fun. The younger boys were ahead, before Birch did a challenge where someone had to throw a Frisbee at a tree then someone else had to hit it before it hit the tree. Sounds easy right? We older boys did it on the first try. Then the younger boys tried… attempt 1, no go… attempt 2 failed, 3 failed, 4 failed, 5 failed. They never did successfully answer the challenge. We older boys got a good laugh out of it.


Anyway…we had a great time on the hike. We always enjoy the few days we get to spend together. It really strengthens us. We’re all definitely best friends.

Oh yeah….on the drive home, Andrews car (GEO Prism) that has 240k miles (or more) on it got stranded when the timing belt broke. I don’t have time to go into that story, but it was another adventure.