Alpenglow on the tops of Seven-Fingered Jack and Mount Maude, as seen from the trailhead
Elain and I had originally intended to climb Mount Baker by the North Ridge this weekend, but at the last minute the forecast called for thunderstorms. We decided to change plans to climb something east of the Cascade crest. We went down the list of "projects" in the eastern Cascades. Elain wasn't interested in a replay of the Mountaineer Creek bushwhack that would be necessary to reach Argonaut, and I was not really interested in climbing Dragontail by the scramble route. So we settled on Seven-Fingered Jack, perhaps the easiest of the ten non-volcanic summits over 9000' to reach in the State. This time of year, we reckoned it would be feasible as a day climb, but we decided to bivy at the trailhead in order to get an early start. After a long hot drive down the dusty Chiwawa River Road, with the customary near-misses with kamikaze deer, we reached the Phelps Creek Trailhead at 8:30 PM. The setting sun painted the top of Seven-Fingered Jack with an alabaster glow. It seemed so very far away. We were happy to discover that there were no mosquitoes at the trailhead, in contrast to the vicious bugs at the Stuart Lake Trailhead.
It was quite chilly as we packed our backpacks at 4:00 in the morning. We tied our boots to our backpacks, and started out wearing sneakers. By 4:30 we were trudging up the Phelps Creek Trail under the pale dawn light. We made good time along the trail, and at each of the half-dozen small creek crossings, some kind soul had placed large rocks that could be hopped across. Within three hours, we reached the edge of the talus at the Leroy Creek Basin, where we stopped briefly to rest and change into our boots. Surrounded by the huge peaks of the Entiat Range, the basin was still in shadow, and the light breeze was chilly. We got into our homemade nylon bivy sacks to quickly warm up. Once we had changed into our boots, we started trudging up the snow and heather slopes toward Seven-Fingered Jack. The snow had firmed up surprisingly well during the night, so we could barely kick tiny footholds in the snow. We made our way up a snow finger towards a waterfall, where Elain chose a line up loose rock left of the waterfall. We then followed heather up and gradually to the right. The loud whistle of marmots gave away that our presence was noticed by the local wildlife.
Elain spied a long snow gully off to the left, that seemed to extend all the way to the southwest shoulder of Seven-Fingered Jack. At the base of the gully, we put on our crampons and started up. The snow in the gully was not steep, perhaps 30-35 degrees, but it had frozen quite well during the night. At the top of the gully, we reached the southwest shoulder, which is a broad snow-covered ridge of shattered rock. We followed the ridge up towards a spire that we reckoned was the summit. At the top of the spire, I checked my watch, and was pleased with our ascent time, 5 hours 20 minutes. The North Face of Mount Maude looked amazingly steep from this vantage point, it was hard to believe that we had climbed it one year previously. While I was snapping a photo of Mount Maude, Elain reached the summit and directed my attention to the spire behind us. Oops, we were not on the summit at all. We had climbed the wrong finger! We scrambled back down to the narrow col between the two fingers, and then traversed around the west side of the true summit block. A short gully scramble got us to the true summit at 10:00 AM. As Smoot had mentioned in his guidebook, the summit was covered in ladybugs. Curiously, I saw no parties heading up Maude or Seven-Fingered Jack, and no tents in the Leroy Creek Basin. The weather was perfect, with clear visibility to Mount Baker (tricked again by the forecast...). We signed the summit register, took our summit photos, and started back down.
Elain wanted to try to descend the southwest slope all the way to Leroy Creek Basin, so we stayed on the ridge as we descended. A snow slope led us down the ridge, steadily narrowing and steepening until it reached a waterfall at a cliff band about 100' above the talus. After a bit of searching, Elain found another snow-filled gully off to the left that threaded obliquely through the cliff band and led all the way to the talus. Back in the Leroy Creek Basin, we switched back to our sneakers and headed off towards the trail. After a bit of bushwhacking we were back on the climbers' trail. Elain set a blistering pace on the hike out, literally blistering because my heels were quite raw by the time we reached the car at 2:45 PM.
Seven-Fingered Jack entirely lived up to its reputation as a rubble pile. But the views were spectacular, and it was certainly the most painless 9000' summit we have yet reached.
Gear we used: ice axe, crampons, helmet.
Alpenglow on the tops of
Seven-Fingered Jack and Mount Maude, as seen from the trailhead
The North Face of Mount Maude
Elain on the summit of Seven-Fingered Jack
Steve on the summit of Seven-Fingered Jack
