Jack Mountain (Crater Mtn), August 7,8 1999  Trail near Crater mtn summit

Stephen, Cormac, Sinead and I arrived at the Canyon Creek trailhead Saturday mid-morning, ready to make the several thousand foot trudge up to a base camp below Jack Mountain's East Ridge. The Becky guide rated this climb as class 4 on "excellent rock". The ridge itself is about 2000 feet high. Jack Mountain was chosen in part because of the poor weather forecast, and we hoped that it would be in enough of a rain shadow. We suspected that this approach would be a bit of a bear... it involved an ascent from 1900ft to a 7200ft col on Crater Mountain, then a traverse of Jerry glacier, a scramble up a steep ramp to a ridge crest, and then lots of up and down on that ridge, to a 6000ft camp. All in all, about 6700ft of climbing to reach base camp. And then another 3000ft the next day to climb Jack. And then another 2400ft to get out.

 

The outlet of Crater Lake.

We crossed Granite and Canyon creeks on nice bridges, and began the steep ascent. Within a few hours, we arrived at beautiful Crater Lake, which had several long cascading waterfalls pouring into it. We traversed easy snow towards to col in Crater mountain, while listening to the thunder and the evil dark clouds boiling across the valley. Once at the col (five and a half hours after leaving the road), we had to make a decision. To continue would probably involve several more hours of tedious travel, mostly on a ridge top, and the weather was slightly threatening. There were frequent lightning strikes off in the distance. To stop here would mean we wouldn't be close enough to Jack in order to climb it the next day.

 

The approaching thunderstorm

We decided to continue, since we had come all this way, and began putting on our harnesses for the glacier traverse (though we could see no crevasses on Jerry glacier). Suddenly, the thunder got louder, and clouds started zooming towards us from the back of Crater mountain. We quickly ditched the plan, and scrambled down from the col to safety, fully expecting lightning to start hitting the ridge. We found a safe spot for our tents, and waited. The snow around our camp was the home of some very intensely coloured algae. It looked like someone had spilled orange gatorade everywhere. The close lightning never materialized, but the clouds came down, and we were engulfed in a whiteout while we set up our tents. Shortly thereafter, it began to rain, sometimes very hard. The area to the south was actually the intersection of two large valleys... occasionally, we could see down into them, and there was a precession of clouds quickly moving around in a circular pattern far above the center of the valley intersection.

 

The best view we had of Jack Mountain. The East Ridge is on the ridge skyline, partially in the clouds.

We spent a cozy night in our nook, planning to check the skies out at 4:30am. If they were clear, we'd go for Jack anyway, knowing it would mean an epic day. At 4:30am, it was all socked in. We went back to sleep.

 

Cormac in the morning

Later that morning, after a lazy breakfast, we decided to head up to the (nearby) East peak of Crater mountain. A (very short) route looked feasible up the west ridge. It was mostly an easy scramble, with one class 4 section where we took out the rope. We relaxed on top in the intermittent sunshine and whiteout.

 

West ridge of the East peak of Crater Mountain

 

On the summit of Crater Peak East

After a few minutes on the summit, I noticed a smushed soda can under a rock. Summit register? It was actually two soda cans seemingly attached with duct tape. Someone said pull it open... I pulled, the suprisingly well-designed contraption slid open smoothly, and out popped a tiny notebook. We opened it up to the first page. It said something to the likes of "To thoes [sic] hardy soles [sic] who climb Crater mountain East Peak". The entry was dated 1990. All the rest of the pages were empty. It is hard to believe that someone wouldn't see this thing on the summit... so we may very well have been the first party on top of this peak in nine years! We wrote an entry and place it back inside the soda can capsule.

We down climbed the ridge, and headed back to camp. After packing up, we traversed over to the Crater Mountain trail, and gave it a shot. In an hour or so, we arrived at the summit, after a steep but easy scramble up the south west face. It was littered with the remains of a fire lookout. There was another summit register here (quite well hidden), albeit with a lot more entries. They were pretty interesting to read, and included a guy who was on a backpacking trip with his mother, in the hopes that it would strengthen their emotional bond. It was written "In fact, I can already feel it happening". It was added that his mother was waiting for him down at the Crater Mountain/JAckita Ridge trail junction (a good two hours away!).

 

View towards highway 20 from the Crater Mtn trail

Upon descending from the summit area, we met the first and only other party we saw all weekend. Back at Crater LAke we filled up on food while swatting flies (and Stephen tended to his ever-growing blisters), and, two hours later, had descended the remaining 4300ft to the trailhead. On the way home, we stopped at the Buffalo Run Restaurant... this seems to be becoming a tradition. We all played it cheap and ordered the salad bar, and loaded our one-trip trays to hilt. The potato salad was gross. Soup was good.