[TR] Mt washington and 3 finger jack in a weekend- N. Ridge Washington, S. Ridge 3FJ 8/6/2006

[111]

Climb: Mt washington and 3 finger jack in a weekend-N. Ridge Washington, S. Ridge 3FJ

 

Date of Climb: 8/6/2006

 

Trip Report:

Logan, myself, and a new climber I met at OSU headed out to the big lake TH friday night to get an early start on washington. the hike in was fast and we made it to the N ridge notch at about 10:30, just ahead of a group of 5 Mazamas. I led the 3 pitches, as I had followed them before. We made it to the top in fine fashion and chatted with the mazamas once they got up there. The strangest thing about the summit that day was the amount of flying and crawling insects. There were flies and flying ants EVERYWHERE. eating became a chore of watching constantly to make sure nothing flew into the trail mix bag. We were able to prussic down the top pitch on the mazama's fixed line and then rapped the last two (I wasn't comfortable with downclimbing some of that stuff unprotected). Trundled some huge stones on the scree slope and got one to jump into the air about 20-30 feet. Sweet.

Three finger Jack was a longer hike in but more interesting. Hiking through the burn was really neat. The climbing was very steep scree with solid rock interspersed. We also roped up the whole time after the crawl and simulclimbed the traverse slinging chicken heads mostly. A steep two pitch in a natural chimney on poor rock leads to a knife edge summit that had orange monarchs(?) swarming around. One of the climbers I was with is a geology major and he was having the time of his life inspecting all the rock and layers as we climbed. There is even Smith Rock tuff up there!

The hike out turned shitty when I stopped to retrieve a water cache and found that someone had stolen my nalgene. Bastards!

 

Gear Notes:

Washington; red camalot (key for 1st pitch), nuts, hexes.

3FJ; lots of big slings for chickeneads, hexes, and large nuts for the summit pitches.

 

 

Edited August 8, 2006 by 111

[gapertimmy]

nice! any pictures? How did the black crater fire look from Washington?

[dinomyte]

Glad to hear it went well, 111. From Lil Bro, we couldn't see the fire, but the road was closed right before Dee Wright. Washington, 3FJ, and Jeff looked smoky (as you can see in the pic). We could just make out Hood.

Edited August 8, 2006 by dinomyte

[dan_forester]

funny how Mt Washington is home to those disgusting winged ant creatures and 3 Fingered Jack is where the butterflies hang out.

 

nice job, sounds like a good way to spend your weekend!

[Kevin_Matlock]

Glad to hear it went well, 111. From Lil Bro, we couldn't see the fire, but the road was closed right before Dee Wright. Washington, 3FJ, and Jeff looked smoky (as you can see in the pic). We could just make out Hood.

[111]

pics are at http://oregonstate.edu/~rothi/3fj%20-%20wash./ I dont want to post them because they are really big. From washington we could just see the southern edge of the fire behind a ridge. Smokey as all hell.

[Couloir]

Nice run. Great pics.

[mtnmedic]

Nice trip!

[Kevin_Matlock]

It's been a couple years since I've been up Washington... just trying to recall how long the rap is on the first pitch on the north ridge? You know, from the block with all the slings down to the saddle. 50' at the most if memory serves, but just don't remember if this is correct.

thanx

[dan_forester]

a 50 m rope will get you down from the block.

[MtnBoy]

Was up on Middle Sister this weekend and got a good view of the fire going up the Eastern flanks of Mt. Washington.

Edited August 14, 2006 by MtnBoy

[Kevin_Matlock]

Having a hard time seeing your pic.

Planning on going up this Sunday, maybe I should bring my flame-retardant rope?

Any other fire beta... will this be a hazard or will it just obscure the views?

[MtnBoy]

Sorry about that,

 

I have not posted many pics

 

The fire is burning in the basin to the East of Mt. Washington and on Sat. was burining up slope toward the mountain for most of the day. The winds were taking the smoke to the South West and the summit was obsured for most of the day. Personnaly I would not want to be inhailing smoke on route all day, especially since there are many other fine climbs around.

 

The fire guys were bombing the crap out of the fire and provide great entertainment.

 

http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=20485&size=big&sort=1&cat=512

[111]

a 50 m rope will get you down from the block.

a 50 will get you down, but a 60 makes it a lot nicer since you dont have to downclimb the ramp.

[dinomyte]

Washington was on fire, so we had to do Jack. We'll save Washington for later, but thanks for the tip.

[dinomyte]

Oh, and I don't know if you saw the paper, but it had an article on the "California Tortoiseshell" butterflies that were all over Jack. So thick, we could barely see!