Three Fingered Jack 7,841′
Rock Climbing– Pacific Northwest
Total Time: 10:00
Distance: 11.0 miles
Elevation Gain: 3400′
Crux: Class 5.2
Pitches: 4
Protection: Light alpine rack, many slings
Trailhead: Santiam Pass TH, no services
Companions: Justin Shelton
For my first extended alpine trip away from the family since Avery’s birth, I was headed north to Oregon for a few days of peakbagging and rock climbing in and around Bend. Being early May, we needed to be flexible with weather and conditions, and had already cut the first day of climbing from rain. But it was clear skies the rest of the week, and we left Bend with an alpine start west towards Santiam Pass for a spring ascent of Three Fingered Jack 7841′, one of seven summits on the Mazamas Cascades Award List. A long inactive volcano, the mountain has been heavily eroded with the narrow summit spire requiring low technical climbing up chossy rock. The proximity to Santiam Pass and the PCT make for a reasonable day trip, but with full snow coverage from the trailhead, it would definitely add to the difficulties. The plan was to hike in with skis, leaving them along the southern ridge near a SE facing bowl and ski as much as we could back to the car. Between skis and my climbing gear, I knew I would need my frame backpack to fit everything, and I loaded up my harness, a light rack, rope and skis to my pack. As I began to cinch things down, the straps began exploding and disintegrating in my hands- the 15 year old pack having been through 100s of days on the trail and trips around the world. We were able to McGuiver the skis in place with some straps, only to have my entire shoulder strap rip when I lifted it off the ground. Although I had another pack with me, we had taken Justin’s car to the trailhead, and mine was an hour away back in Bend. I was about to suggest pivoting to Smith Rock, when Justin mentioned that he had a duffle that could be converted to a backpack. There would be no way to lash the skis to the outside, but I could at least carry the climbing stuff and salvage the day.
I hurriedly threw my climbing gear in the duffle and we started off, immediately losing the PCT in the snow but heading directly north for our objective, clearly visible as we worked through a burn scar. To the south was another potential objective, Mount Washington.
The stats for Washington were similar but the climbing was on the north aspect, and I was surprised to see how much snow the summit plug was still holding, likely ruling it out as a reasonable day. We made good progress hiking through the burned forest, crossing over the buried PCT a number of times before briefly finding out along a melted out section lower on the south ridge. It quickly disappeared in snow, and we took a short break at the saddle, Justin scoping out the ski descent that I would miss out on. We continued as best we could along the ridgeline in snow, getting off track a few times at indistinct saddles but joining it again easily enough as we climbed higher. I was thankful the snow was incredibly solid with absolutely no post holing even without floatation- I could only hope those conditions would hold on the descent given my lack of skis.
The ridge began to steepen beneath a series of false summits, and we paused to put on crampons for a little extra traction, not so much for safety but efficiency climbing the steep snow. We crossed over the false summit and Justin dropped his skis, the volcanic summit plug now less than a mile away and looking quite intimidating.
We dropped down one more snowy saddle and stopped at the top of the snow to take off our crampons, put on harnesses and consolidate our gear to a single pack (obviously not the duffle). What started as a well defined climbers trail almost immediately deteriorated to ill defined paths working up loose scree and volcanic sand. Although the rain the day before had not brought any new snow to the mountain, all west facing rock was covered in an inch of rime ice and as we climbed higher, I hoped that the technical pitches were spared from the ice. We followed the ill defined path to a small high snow field, likely melted out by the early summer, but easily bypassed along it’s base. We had to briefly cross it higher up, but a few short steps brought us to solid rock and the climber’s trail.
The route crossed several notches before reaching the first pitch of technical climbing, a short traverse bypassing a tower on the right known as the catwalk. Protected by two pitons with opportunities for cams, the majority of the pitch was scrambling, but exposed enough that a slip would cause serious injury. The move at the second piton was tricky for fourth class, and I was glad the pitch was ice free. I hit an anchor of brand new webbing wrapped around a boulder and continued past, with easy scrambling and a short fourth class step bringing me to a second new webbing anchor. I clipped in and brought up Justin to join me, as the sun began to shine on the west facing aspects of the summit spire, the rime ice warming, breaking and tinkling down the west face.
The falling ice certainly made the outing feel even more alpine. Justin put me back on belay and some easy walking brought me to the crux pitch, a short 5.2 chimney just below the summit.
There was a discontinuous crack on the right that took medium cams, and I placed protection at every ledge. The climbing actually reminded me quite a bit of Pinnacles, pebbles and rock studding loose volcanic choss. So much so, that a rock I was standing on blew completely. Thankfully I knew enough to have all points of contact on a different rock and didn’t fall, but it did underscore the poor rock quality. Above the chimney was another anchor, and although I had hoped to run it up to the summit, I had too much rope drag to make it worthwhile. So I belayed up Justin, have no difficulties climbing the pitch on top rope save for cleaning a cam or two in the jagged crack. Above the anchor it was a short scramble to the summit, the spire with another (4th!) new cord anchor. The true high point was just past the anchor and I tagged it before bringing up Justin, taking us a little over 5 hours from the car to the summit- definitely slowed by the snow and conditions.
We took some photos and called our significant others before beginning our descent, rappeling from the summit anchor to the base of the chimney with a single 70 meter rope. We scrambled back down to the second anchor and rappelled the short fourth class step to the first anchor and end of the catwalk pitch, which we would need to reverse. I actually found it a bit trickier on the way out, although it was also my first time doing any technical climbing in my Scarpa Mountaineering Boots.
With the technical climbing behind us, I coiled the rope as Justin began descending the scree, finding a path above the high snowfield on the descent to bring us back to our packs. Knowing Justin would likely smoke me in his skis on the descent, I picked up the paced to try and put a bit of distance between us, going over the false summits and nearly descending the ridgeline back into the forest before he was able to drop in. Unfortunately for him, the best skiable line dropped towards the SE drainage with our car in the drainage to the SW, and he needed to traverse over the ridgeline I was descending, allowing me to make up some time. I was nervous entering the burn area as I feared the warm temps of the day would make for a post holing nightmare the last few miles back to the car.
But I was pleasantly surprised to find very little, mostly sinking at most an inch if at all, with only a few deeper plunges near some half buried trees almost to the trailhead. Even in the sparse forest, I only spotted Justin one time on the entire descent, although he only beat me to the car by 30 minutes, which did make me feel better about not being able to ski with him. My shoulders were burning from the duffle as I threw it in his trunk. I recovered a beer I had stashed in the snow by the car and we headed back to Sisters for a Himalayan dinner at High Camp Taphouse before driving back to Bend for a few days of climbing at Smith Rock.
