July 17, 2004
Ken Kruger
What a great climb!
That’s it… that’s all I have to say.
You can take a look at the pictures and see what I mean….
I’ll give credit to the party members though: Sam Carpenter, Nancy Owen, Chris Wright, James Childre, Rod Jacobson and Mark May.
Maybe just a few details…
We left the Santiam Pass PCT trailhead at a little after 5:30am Saturday, July 17th. We wanted to get an early start to avoid waiting for other parties at the crawl. It’s a good thing we did because a large group of Chemekatans (spell check!) hit the road a couple of minutes before we did. But we hustled past them and made it up to the Crawl in pretty good time. The clouds threatened a bit and we even got a drop or two of rain but that didn’t thwart our ambition as we harnessed up and prepared to make the traverse.
Sam led the way and put in the fixed line as I belayed him and we all made it across without difficulty. We scrambled up to just below the chimney, passing numerous high mountain flowers of varying colors, and then made the assault on the top. The exposure at the top is quite dramatic so Sam belayed from the top while the rest of the party members made the ascent. You can only fit about three people on top of Jack at a time so we had to take turns; one rapped down then another went up. Once on top I wanted to get back down because the rocks up there were absolutely covered with flying ants – they appeared to be mating but why they chose the summit of 3FJ to do it I’ll never know.
After a fun little rap down the chimney we were all smiles as we regrouped and scrambled back down to the Crawl where the Chemekatans were on their way up. They were gracious enough to let us use their fixed line for the return traverse, after which I noticed the bomb proof anchor they used for the front end – they had their 11mm rope slung around a Volkswagen-sized boulder! No risk there.
The hike out was very nice; a little breeze now and then helped keep it from getting too hot. There’s not much in the way of shade on the last half of the hike along the PCT due to the fire last year but it was still quite nice. An ocean of ferns blankets the forest floor and contrast sharply the charred black trees jutting out of the green. An occasional meadow of wild flowers added even more to the contrast.
As I said, this was a great, fun climb. The mountain and weather cooperated nicely and the team worked well together. I can’t wait to do it again soon.
North Sister anyone…?