Yesterday, I wanted to go hiking somewhere that was totally new to me. At first I considered Opal Creek, but then I thought, "no, Opal Creek can wait until autumn... it's July, dammit, and the alpine summer doesn't last long, so it's volcano time." I looked at a map and decided on Three-Fingered Jack, because it's accessible from good roads and it's less than a 3-hour drive away.
William Sullivan's "green book" mentions a
long loop that involves some bushwhacking, and I found basically the same loop described in a
Sisters newspaper article. Both sources said that you should do it clockwise, but I'm stubborn, and I have a GPS (two of them if you count my phone), and I don't like back-lit mountains in my photos, so I decided to do it in reverse so that I was starting on the east side in the morning.
(
Click here for an interactive Google Map)
So I woke up at oh-dark-thirty and got on the road by 5:45am. I stopped in Salem to pick up lunch (FYI, the deli section at Winco has excellent croissant sandwiches for $2.48), and got to the Santiam Pass trailhead for the Pacific Crest Trail at about 8:30. This is right in the middle of the burned area from the huge 2003 B&B Complex fire, so the first 4 or 5 miles (as well as the last 4) looked pretty much like this:
I headed east to Square Lake, then north to Booth Lake. In places, the trail was almost invisible because of the out-of-control snowbrush shrubs (
Ceanothus velutinus) growing on either side. Both lakes were pretty unremarkable, but I finally started getting some views of TFJ near Booth Lake.
Scarlet gilia was EVERYWHERE in the burned area; at first I thought all the red must be paintbrush, but nope.
Of course there were lupines and beargrass all over the place too, but the beargrass is pretty much done. Thistles and cat's-ear lilies were common, as well as a couple kinds of penstemon. And butterflies.... holy crap, I've never seen so many butterflies in one day. And of course the usual assortment of bumblebees, flies, and beetles:
When I got to the bottom of a little draw east of Martin Lake, I headed off-trail and uphill to the west (first blue section on my map). There was no water flowing anymore, but you could tell where it had been a little wetter, based on the vegetation. I had to step over a lot of fallen burned trees, but it was easy going. Martin Lake was very picturesque, partly because it was half-surrounded by — get this — UN-burned trees! It would have been a great place for skinny-dipping, except I didn't want to give the mosquitoes any more of a target.
I considered bushwhacking up the ridge on the north side of Martin Lake and trying to reach Summit Lake, but I was afraid it might be hairier than it looked on the map, so I just took the "easy" route (first purple segment) and found my way up to the PCT. It would've been a piece of cake if I'd bothered taking my trekking poles off my pack.
From the ridge, there were awesome views to the east and south. This photo is actually from when I came back this way in the afternoon (better light):
I went north on the PCT for about a half a mile, and finally ran into a couple of patches of snow. I was looking to see if there was a good place I could leave the trail and go up the ridge that forms the south side of TFJ. At a switchback, I found a good spot, and battled my way uphill through this sort of stuff:
But most of it wasn't quite that rough, and this time I did get my poles out. Check out the view to the south from that ridge; the two lakes in the foreground are Booth Lake and Square Lake, which I'd passed earlier.
Oh, and the view of Three-Fingered Jack from up there wasn't bad either.
I kept going north on the ridge, figuring that eventually I'd either see a good path down or eventually just run into the climber's trail that leads to the crumbly nasty summit. I found this cool snow arch:
And it just wouldn't be a proper hike if at some point I didn't cling precariously to a rock wall with one hand to get a photo of a flower I'd never seen in Oregon:
Eventually I got to the "end" of the ridge I was on — sort of a saddle, really — where continuing forward would have meant going up up up toward the summit. This shot of the east side of TFJ is actually from a little further back, but you get the idea:
And then I thought I found an obvious trail heading down. Well, it started out obvious, anyway. After a few false starts, I found something that resembled a trail; it wasn't the main climber's trail, but it worked. As I got close to the PCT, I turned around to see what I thought would be another awesome view of Jack. Honestly, I was NOT impressed.
Seriously, at this point I was REALLY glad I'd done that big ridge bushwhack, because the views from up on top had been far better than anything the PCT had to offer.
The rest of the hike was uneventful: a five-mile descent through a bit of healthy alpine forest and then a whole lot of 10-year-old fire damage. I was glad I'd brought my iPod. I did find some water lilies in a cute little pond near the end, though. (I'd post a photo, but apparently I've reached my forum attachment limit!)
Overall, it was about 13.6 miles (not counting wanderings to chase butterflies or interesting wildflowers), with between 2000 and 2500 feet of elevation gain. There were quite a few mosquitoes — both near the lakes and on the PCT where the snow was melting — but they had a healthy respect for DEET.
Here's a 3-D Google Earth view of the interesting parts:
And more photos:
http://adamschneider.net/photos/2013-07-tfj/
