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.
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3 comments:
John, I see your 3FJ team collected on the summit. Are you attached to the rock somehow there? I always have a very tenuous belay "anchor" consisting of webbing slung around nubbins at that point. Or do you all just walk out to the point unroped from the anchor slings at the top of that last "chimney"?
- PaulM
In response to Paul, On 3FJ, I've always found that chewing gum makes about as good of an anchor as you'll find on the summit. It's best to keep your raincoat handy so you can "Mary Poppins" your way down in the event of a fall.
Jess P
Hi Paul,
Mike ran the rope across the summit and wrapped the nubbins. When I reached the summit I tied a clove hitch on the anchor preceeding the knife edge. All climbers clipped in. I've tried the chewing gum technique but I've always considered it overkill.
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