Three Fingered Jack (7,841') - July 11, 2009

Three Fingered Jack; chossy, rotten, challenging, airy, varied, and fun, fun, fun! Our team of six got up and out early Saturday morning for what proved to be a wonderful day in the mountains.














Tony, Sarah, Vaqas, Ken, & Mike

We were expecting lots of climbers and lots of bugs, but we got neither (no climbers and only a few bugs). If you've ever climbed 3FJ, you know that's a BIG win right out of the shoot.

Provisional Climb Leader Mike Rudy led us up the snow-patched PCT to the base of the climber's trail leading up to the saddle and onto the South Ridge.

Looking back at the saddle




From there we danced around several gendarmes, up scree covered crud, and finally to the base of The Crawl, where you actually have rock that is "sort of" stable. It's always fun to see how new climbers react to their first look at The Crawl, and Ken, Tony, and Sarah didn't disappoint. They nailed it without hesitation!

Mike and I continued up to the base of The Chimney and setup a fixed line leading to the airy, crumbly, knife-edge summit.














The upside of the 3FJ summit is the great views of Mt Jefferson to the northwest and all the familiar Three Sisters, et al, peaks to the south. The downside is that your lifeline is attached to a couple of fingernail sized chicken heads that cluck in the wind! After a few macho photos it was time to head down. As always, the descent and subsequent hike out was painfully longer than you'd expect, but fortunately we had a talkative, charismatic (!) Vaqas to keep our minds off the dusty trail. Thanks, man!












Descending down to The Crawl




Once back to the trailhead, my duties as mentoring leader were finished (nice job, Mike). For the rest of the team, the prospect of climbing Mt Washington on Sunday still loomed. Thankfully, thunderstorms and low clouds provided the perfect excuse to reschedule to a later date. Brewskis around! Yep, it's a charmed life.

Mt Ellinor, SE Chute (5,944') - June 6, 2009

You never know how things are going to work out. I have been looking for an opportunity to lead a Chemeketan club climb of Mt. Ellinor for over a year, but for one reason or another it hasn't happened. Consequently, when poor weather forced Scott Kelley to cancel his provisional lead of Middle Sister (I was his mentoring leader), I suggested we give the ol' girl a shot. While not great, at least the weather was better than bad so we decided to go for it.

As we worked our way up I-5 towards the turnoff to Hoodsport, we realized this may have been a better idea on paper than in reality -- it was raining cats and dogs! Finally, less than ten miles from the trailhead, we hit dry road. We still had to deal with low clouds, but at least we were dry.















Our Team: Stephen, Cathy, Mark, Gloria, Chuck, Diane, Cynde, Me, Scott, & Wild Bill (front).


There are three trailheads leading to Mt. Ellinor; the upper (for mom's, dad's, kids and dogs), the lower (1.9 miles longer and our choice), and the trail out of Big Creek Campground (add 3.6 miles & several hundred feet of elevation.... hey, we're tough, not crazy). The root-covered trail led past a wonderful vista view of Lake Cushman....















and eventually to a way trail leading to "The Chute".













We worked our way up through the low clouds, over frozen snow bridges, under low hanging branches, over rocky piles of loose talus, and across dry stream beds, eventually topping out just a few hundred feet below the summit.





















Just as we regrouped for the final push, the warm sun broke through the clouds and we were blessed with a beautiful sunny summit! We made it!




After a pleasurable descent back to the car, there was nothing left but to enjoy one final luxury.... a post climb micro-brew! Congrats to all!







Wild Bill and Scott celebrate in style!







For more photos and commentary regarding this climb, please visit my Webshots Page

Mt Washington, Olympic Range NEW Climb

Hello,

Check out the latest additions to my Blog. I've added a new Chemeketan climb - Mt Washington, Olympic Range - to the "2009 Climb Schedule" ======>>>

The "Weather & Conditions" page has been updated as well.