[pct-l] Russell Creek (Mt Jefferson - Oregon) crossing

[Dennis Phelan]

This weekend my wife and I filled in a missing piece of our Oregon PCT hike
which included crossing Russell Creek coming off of Mt Jefferson.  From
various discussions and postings about advising that this could be a tough
crossing I was prepared for it not being the easiest and expected a
challenge.  Now I know that this late in the year, the streams will be down
as this was a very dry year and the snow melt has almost stopped, but what
we got was most unexpected; the creek was entirely covered in heavy snow,
which was frozen solid.  I tested the snow and it was so solid that my pole
hardly dented it.  We simply walked across the nice ice bridge.  The
toughest part was not slipping on the uphill on the far side.  What I am
really wondering is why doesn't this condition exist every year?  This was
a low average snow year, it would seem that this stream would be covered
like this more than not.  Anyway, I was sure glad it was this year.

Dennis Phelan