Trip Report

It is another Saturday at 3:30 in the morning at the PCT parking lot on top of Santiam Pass. George Williamson, Mike Morris and I began hiking with our gear for the summit of Three Fingered Jack. This is by far my favorite mountain to climb. Not sure why but I really like it. As we arrived at the Crawl at 7:30 I thought we were making really great time. As usual, the crawl had changed again. There were more missing rocks on the climb out of the ledge. Nothing really exciting because Mike and George are exceptionally fit climbers and great to be around. Got up to the chimney and got things set up to get our summit and we were half done at 10:00 in the morning. We got some great pics of us doing the weird poses up on that little 3'x3' surface we call the summit and back down the mountain we go. We got to the tree at the junction to hit the scree trail which you can see from the bottom and wonder if you have to climb that, which you don't. We began the scree skiing down the mountain and hit the lunch tree by 11:30. We were still making really great time. We decided not to take lunch and just keep going. Now we were headed for the cars on the PCT which at this point is a little bit down hill and a lot of flat. Did I mention that George and Mike are in really great condition? Wow! We were at the cars by 1:30, a new record for me. 10 hours start to finish. Hope we didn't miss anything. Got to have great conversation and meet the many thru hikers as well. I would climb with these guys anytime. Happy climbing all.