3 Days, 3 Summits

3 9000′ peaks in 3 days, can’t complain about a weekend like that!

With 3 peaks so close together and 3 days off, how could we not go for? Mt Maude, Seven Finger Jack and Fernow. We headed out early Friday am arriving at the Phelps Creek TH a little after 9:30am and started hiking around 10am. The first 1.5 miles of Phelps Creek trail is easy and flat with a few interesting stream crossings, all doable thanks to some previous hikers and their placements of logs and rocks.

We turned up the Lero Creek trail shortly after 11am and started the steep ascent into Leroy Basin. People complain that this trail is steep and long, I say just steep. We arrived in Leroy Basin just as a storm front was crossing over the ridgeline to the west, not a good sign of things to come.

The weather held off for the most part and in between rain and snow showers we were able to make our way up a snow couloir and rocky slope to the summit of 7F Jack.

Not too much visibility. We guessed that this was the summit????

The descent was pretty straight forward and it seemed as though the weather might break for us before the end of the day.

Before long we had our camp set up at about 7000 overlooking Leroy Basin on a little minor rocky bluff. Not a bad spot to be.

After a lot of map reading and deliberation we decided that our original idea of going for Copper Pk was way too much. We decided to sleep in and just take a “leisure” trip over to Fernow. We woke up and started hiking at about 10. The climb to the col between 7F Jack and Fernow was easily gained in about 30minutes from camp and took only a few minutes to get over and onto the best rock ever…..NOT!!!

But the view was pretty amazing

We were given a super nice view of the upcoming descent and climb up to the snowfield below Fernow. It looked awfully exposed and slabby.

The descent down to the basin was pretty scketchy, loose 3rd class rock with some nice exposure. We were not looking forward to going back up it. The basin went quickly and we were soon looking at the slope up to Fernow from its base. It didn’t look nearly as bad as I thought from a distance.

After only an hour or so we were approaching the saddle below the Fernow summit and started to scope out our route.

The path to the top of Fernow, follows a few small ledge systems up and around in a clockwise fashion. You almost reach the far ridgeline before starting up for the summit. The rock is reasonably sound with the occasional loose section. After about an hour or so of route finding and scrambling we reached the summit.

With an awesome view of Mt Maude’s NF, which was supposed to be the next days adventure.

Can someone tell me why the Ladybugs love to hang on the summit of these big mountains??

We started down and took a different route back to the col which consisted of a loose boulder field, very unstable and tiring down scrambling.

The rest of the descent back to camp was pretty straight forward. We did hate the 3rd class runout that took us back to the 7F Jack-Fernow col. We both vowed never to return to that hell zone

Finally reaching camp and getting ready to gear down, I reach down and notice my crampon’s front toe strap is broken and no longer holding my toe in place. We also realize that the trekking poles that we both left at camp are now gone. DAMN marmots, stole them for the sweat on the handles. Good times….

We start to boil water for dinner and what should I see out of the corner of my eye, but the little marmot dragging one of the trekking poles into the trees. Mark chases him down and fights him for his trekking pole back. Too funny to watch.

We are treated with a pretty nice sunset view and enjoy a leisure evening. Once we discovered the broken crampon, we decided that kicking steps up the NF of Maude would definitely not be a wise choice. So we opted to sleep in and do the normal route.

We woke up a little later than planned, but with a guide book predicting a 4 hr climb we weren’t too worried. We packed up camp and headed down to the base of the snow slope laced with boot tracks and dropped our unnecessary gear. We took our own little modified variation to the main snow field. We found a short snow finger that lead into a small rocky chute. Not bad, just a little spice on an otherwise basic snow climb.

After only about 30 minutes we reached the upper snow field and were soon on the rocky ridge heading toward the summit. 4 hrs? more like 2..

We reached the summit 45 minutes later after following the climbers track on the climbers left of the ridge. Reached the final 10 ft snow patch and were soon on the summit. We ran into two other WAC members there and we all chatted for a while about how far out Copper is and how we all wish it was closer…. They had summited Fernow a couple of weeks prior to us. We sat and enjoyed the summit for a while, taking pictures.

Fernow from Mt Maude summit

We started our descent and were back in Leroy Basin by 1pm and only had the few miles to hike out. That meant burgers and shakes at the 59 Diner!!!!

We almost ran the last 2 miles out. It was too bad we didn’t get on the NF of Maude and that we had a few casualties in gear, but all in all, a pretty damn great trip!!