A Trip Up Three Fingered Jack

“Trail to Upper Canyon Creek Meadow, Oregon” by Bonnie Moreland. Used under CC PDM 1.0

Editor’s note: In this article, Mazama Ron Gayer reminisces about a climb he made in 2001. The leader on that climb, Terry Cone, passed away in 2018 at the age of 79.

by Ron Gayer

Iwas part of a Mazama team of ten climbers ready and anxious to tackle Three Fingered Jack. Our team started hiking the Pacific Crest Trail at 5:50 on Saturday morning in mid-July. We had all arrived Friday and had set up our tents or vehicles for a good night’s sleep—well, as good as you can get under those circumstances. Before turning in we managed to find each other (we were, for the most part, all strangers to one another) and gathered around our climb leader, Terry Cone, for instructions on what to do in the morning. Mostly it was just a recap of the equipment to take and what time we would be taking off.

The next morning, after waiting for one member of our team, we finally got under way. Despite our late start, the morning was shaping up to be a beautiful one. About five minutes into the hike the team member who had kept us all waiting had to stop for a “clothing break.” He had begun the hike dressed as if to summit Denali mid-winter. So we stopped. Ten minutes farther down the Pacific Crest Trail same guy had to stop again, this time for a bathroom break. And so it went. Truthfully, I was beginning to wonder, somewhat uncharitably, just how much of the group’s time was going to be devoted to this one individual.

A couple of hours from the time we embarked on our journey we arrived at a small ridge where Three Fingered Jack was visible for the first time. I don’t know what I thought I would see, but I wasn’t expecting to find myself looking at such a gnarled remnant of what may have been long ago a reasonably conical volcanic peak. The name, Three Fingered Jack, should have been a pretty good hint that this particular mountain was going to have an interesting summit. My initial impression was one of trepidation. My instincts, as it turned out, were spot on.

Several hours into the climb we broke out of the forest, departed the Pacific Crest Trail, and walked a short distance to the base of this highly eroded volcanic neck sat amid a huge pile of rubble. We started to clamber up a long scree slope, essentially all rock fragments, most very small, some in the boulder category, but all of them just lying, tentatively, on the—and I’m guessing here—40 percent slope. With every step a climber could slide back farther or could unleash a small torrent of rocks on the team

members below. Bigger rocks used to secure oneself with a 3-point stance proved to be prone to slippage as well.

We all stumbled, slid, and scrambled our way up the slope to where the mountain proper began. With every step I took I had to look for a good place to put my boot, and hopefully to gain purchase on something with my hands.

This activity, all unroped to this point, continued for about another hour. There were, in my mind, at my level of experience, some moderately exciting stretches, but nothing that made me wish I had stayed behind.

We moved in a semi-organized manner up the mountain, following our leader. Here on this rock of infinite possibilities, we all sought out our own hand holds and foot placements. There was no semblance of a trail—just the general direction of our climb leader’s path. With care borne of the knowledge that a big slip on this terrain would very likely result in injury we all made it safely to a juncture of this ravaged peak. Now, we could all rest, hydrate, enjoy the view, and slip into our harnesses for the roped portion of the climb.

At this point we encountered a “gendarme,” a rock structure easier to crawl around than to go over. After a short stretch of non-protected climbing across and around a very exposed area, we reached another and much more exposed ledge called “The Crawl.” This is a section of the climb where people have died, and where some climbers choose to crawl rather than proceed on foot. I sucked it up and stayed vertical, with more than a little trepidation.

We all made it through The Crawl, in part by having attached ourselves to protection placed, by, of all people, the guy who was taking so much of our time in the early-dawn prelude to this adventure. All my reservations about him as a teammate evaporated. At this stage of the climb we were separated, each of us individually hooked up between two pieces of protection. After being together for a number of hours, owing to twists and turns of The Crawl, we were each, for some moments of time, out of sight from every other member of the team.

The Crawl was longer than I thought it would be. We had been told that it was pretty exposed and pretty risky. It was. I was able to stay on my feet and kept moving just as though I knew what I was doing. But I was scared, short of terrified but far from confident. Not so much as anyone would notice, and not so much as it affected my progress or performance; but I knew it and I didn’t like the feeling. This was dangerous. This was not roller coaster make-believe scary. This was scary because it was dangerous. One mistake in resetting our carabineers or a slip of the foot and I, or any of my climbing companions, would very likely fall to our deaths.

In the end, all made it. After this section of the climb, one by one, we got to solid ground to wait for the remainder of our party and prepare for the next pitch, a 30-foot groove that also had protection leading up to the top. Using firm hand holds and foot placements, different ones for each of us, we all made our way to the top of the chute, which was just a few feet from what is called (at least by the Mazamas) the Mazama Summit.

Again, we each took this climactic portion of the climb individually. When I got to the Mazama Summit I was told by the assistant climb leader, who was perched several body-lengths from what I perceived to be the actual summit, I had succeeded. I had summited Three Fingered Jack. But why was there still rock well above my head? I asked the assistant leader who was there to insure our safety and to direct traffic on this tiny piece of mountain top. He told me that the actual summit was some 30 or so feet higher, around another scary bend and, radically up. But, again he noted, I had bagged this summit. I didn’t feel that way.

I figured I had gone this far and I didn’t want any excuse to ever feel obligated to come back to this place. I decided to go for the true summit. I unhooked from one rope, and one piece of protection, hooked myself to another and hugged, shuffled, and clutched to protruding bits of the mountain, and wound my way around a blind corner to see a very small peak—the true summit of this mountain. There, very well defined, was a small chimney leading to the actual top of this peak. I pushed, pulled, and blithered around to find relatively safe hand and foot placements and made it to the top. I cannot for the life of me begin to describe this very short journey, because I honestly don’t remember much of it. After a quick look around I worked my way down so that the next team member could go up.

We all made it up and down from the either the Mazama Summit or the true summit. We all made it back across the roped sections, and we all seemed to look at one another with new

respect. We had all summited this mountain. It was a beautiful day and we were all very pleased with the way things had gone.

The trip down the mountain was exciting, but after what we had just been through, it was more in the non-death-defying category. We scrambled down, pretty much making our own routes. Finally, we reached the scree slope and I, being an old trail runner, blasted down to the bottom where our assistant leader greeted each one of us with congratulations on a job well done. We were off the mountain and now had just the six-mile hike back to the cars.

On the drive home I reflected on the experience I had just put myself through. It was such a quantum leap in my nascent climbing career that I was having trouble defining it, or, for that matter, simply getting a handle on it. That’s why I decided to try

Summit of Three Fingered Jack, Oregon. Photo by Kevin Machtelinckx.