Weekend backpacking trip to 3 fingered jack

My girlfriend and I took a weekend backpacking trip to 3 fingered jack. Had an absolute blast. All of the streams were leftover glacial water and easily the best drinking water I've ever filtered. So good.

 

We started at the parking area, way out at jack lake.

 

My girlfriend brought her dog along, he's about 100lbs. Mostly shepherd, and part malamute and husky. He's a big fella. Hard to see here but this is early on in the hike, and you can see 3 fingered jack from there.

 

Getting closer, but it was going to be getting dark soon so we setup camp.

 

Camp was basic as could be.

 

Day 2, left basecamp and decided to take turns with my pack as we went to the ridge of 3 fingered jack. The trails were absolutely fcuking gorgeous.

 

Places like this just sprout up all over. Never got old.

 

Just gotta make it over the ridge, getting close.

 

Now we're out of the woods and up to the mountain itself. This is where things start to get sketchy with exposure, tons of rocks, and areas that shouldn't be rushed.

 

 

Some leftover glacial drip into a small lake.

 

Hard to see, but uhhh. Mountain goat.

 

The area between the ridges we're shooting for.

 

We've come a long ways. If you look far enough past this, the tan/dirt looking area is actually the dead forest we hiked out of to start with.

 

Almost there

 

Because she can.

 

Finally at the top, and easily the best lunch area ever.

 

Yep. Panorama because I love this view. Click, zoom in, and enjoy.

 

Pretty minimal stuff. Down bag, shell, basic synthetics, thermarest, bowl, fork, filter bag, water bottles and some food, a tiny portable heat source for boiling water.

 

 

Nothing like finding bear shit near basecamp on your way out.

 

Even though the forest is dead from the fire, everything cropping back up is gorgeous on the way out.

 

Wild huckleberries on the way out for a nice tasty nature snack.

 

Cooper wanted to cool off, back at jack lake at the end of the trip. Till next time.

Thanks for sharing. Nothing like a good hike!

Epic looking trip! The dog must have loved it.

Beautiful scenery, it's great being able to go bush walking without being afraid of coming out in a body bag, everything wants to kill you here , tanks for sharing!

Very nice pictures!

 

Gotta love the Pacific Northwest.

 

Thanks for sharing.

Beautiful scenery, it's great being able to go bush walking without being afraid of coming out in a body bag, everything wants to kill you here , tanks for sharing!

 

Yeah, the spiders here aren't the size of an elephant, so that's a huge plus! My only concern was the bear shit near camp, but the dog is huge, and black bears are big babies for the most part and don't get into confrontation much. If it were brown bears, that'd be a different story.

I love it

I hiked several volcanos in Costa Rica last summer

Nice photos!

 

I hiked Mt. Of the Holy Cross two weeks ago. I really wish I lived in Colorado so that I could do more hiking.

Thanks for sharing, Derek! That is incredible! Let's go do it when I move back in February! If you happen to make it out here to Hawaii and want a challenge, you have to do Kokohead! Not backpacking, But it may be one of the most challenging hikes you've ever done. I know it was for me when I did it for the first time. The view is entirely worth it.

Very nice pictures!

 

Gotta love the Pacific Northwest.

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

x2

 

Tried it once. Was way too scared to sleep. I ended up driving back basically through the middle of no where from 1am-5am to get back home.

 

Nature is too real for me, the silence, darkness, freaked me out. Maybe I'll go with you guys next time?

 

Beautiful trip though.

Nice post! Beautiful looking country. What burner do you use? I bought a jetboil a while back but still find it kinda bulky.

 

If you happen to make it out here to Hawaii and want a challenge, you have to do Kokohead!

 

Koko Head is super fun. Did that one a few weeks ago. You gotta sneak over to stairway to heaven!

Nice post! Beautiful looking country. What burner do you use? I bought a jetboil a while back but still find it kinda bulky.

 

 

 

Koko Head is super fun. Did that one a few weeks ago. You gotta sneak over to stairway to heaven!

 

The pocket rocket is what my girlfriend brought along (we only brought one, only needed one). Jetboils are bigger, but the benefit is that the jetboil is good for actually cooking stuff if you want. The pocket rocket could, I guess, if you want, but it's much smaller and best at things like boiling water. We bring freeze dried food on trips due to weight, and then filter and boil water to make meals. Much easier that way. Far less weight since most of the weight of food is the water content. Remove that and bring along food that is freeze dried and you've got yourself a lot of reduced weight.

 

For our food we brought along: chili mac (mountain house, and let me tell you, that shit is the BOMB), jerky, a few bagels and some cheese, cliff bars, and coffee, just enough for 2 days. We use a squeeze water filtration system (sawyer), and carried in 2 bottles.

Thanks for sharing, Derek! That is incredible! Let's go do it when I move back in February! If you happen to make it out here to Hawaii and want a challenge, you have to do Kokohead! Not backpacking, But it may be one of the most challenging hikes you've ever done. I know it was for me when I did it for the first time. The view is entirely worth it.

 

GORGEOUS view! Very nice!

We are going to Mt. Jefferson next. I'll get lots of pics. We may go there for 3-4 days, not sure yet. Going to try and take enough time off. It's been cold up in the mountains, but my last gear I bought is good for 19F, so I'll be fine. Regardless, her favorite place is Jefferson, so that's where we are headed next. I'll keep y'all posted on that one because it's going to be fcuking epic.

 

Unfortunately there's a lot of fear of that area since it seems to swallow people up and they just go missing. We recently had a backpacker go missing at jefferson about a week ago and they've since called off the search, but he went alone. Zero traces of the guy.

 

I don't think we'll have any issues though with it being both of us, and she's incredibly experienced in that area.

Gorgeous!

I love all of that but I want to sleep in proper bed at some cottage or hut.

I dont care about good cold breeze or animal noises at night but I want to get good deep sleep without mosquitos or shitty damp matress and hard rock under my head.

I love all of that but I want to sleep in proper bed at some cottage or hut.

I dont care about good cold breeze or animal noises at night but I want to get good deep sleep without mosquitos or shitty damp matress and hard rock under my head.

 

My hearing is not super great. I cannot hear certain high pitched noises above a certain limit. So things like cicadas I cannot hear at night. Up there, all I hear is the wind at night, it's very very quiet to me. She can hear them perfectly fine but I couldn't hear them at all while we were there. I do hear crickets and things like that though. There was this silly "sound test" thing, where apparently younger people can hear these super high pitched noises to see how good your hearing is. Once it gets up to a certain amount, I stopped hearing the noises and everyone else in the room went "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT NOISE?"

 

https://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/how-young-are-your-ears

 

I stop hearing stuff at about 6700hz. Considering I'm only 31, it's likely from all my years of riding motorcycles, wind, etc.

 

Also, worth noting that if you use a thermarest and a good down bag, it can be just as comfortable as sleeping in your bed at home. We look for nice flat places, put down a thermarest (which is a wonderful insulator and pad) and use down bags (light, portable, easy to carry/store).

 

Not the same as car camping gear.

Wow, you're tapped out at 7khz??

 

Someone your age I believe should be in the 12-15k range.

 

Anything over 15khz is unnecessary really and probably preferable. Teens having hearing up to 17khz+ don't really benefit anymore from music playback.

 

In testing, a couple of older guys (70+) have reported more sensitivity to very deep bass (sub 30 hz) compared to younger people. Not sure why that is, but curious if you would as well by default to having similar hearing to that age group.

Wow, you're tapped out at 7khz??

 

Someone your age I believe should be in the 12-15k range.

 

Anything over 15khz is unnecessary really and probably preferable. Teens having hearing up to 17khz+ don't really benefit anymore from music playback.

 

In testing, a couple of older guys (70+) have reported more sensitivity to very deep bass (sub 30 hz) compared to younger people. Not sure why that is, but curious if you would as well by default to having similar hearing to that age group.

 

I tried it on another computer with headphones. Apparently I tap out at 8600ish.

Damn I've been blasting loud music all my life and I tap out at around 18.5k with headphones if this YT clip is accurate. (I'm 31)

Damn I've been blasting loud music all my life and I tap out at around 18.5k with headphones if this YT clip is accurate. (I'm 31)

 

Shit, I'm missing out on like... half the spectrum here lol. Oh well.

Shit, I'm missing out on like... half the spectrum here lol. Oh well.

 

Sound/music fundamentals tend to go up to 9-10 kHz (if that) and the rest are harmonics. See chart.

 

A sound system that does not reproduce harmonics does not sound natural (and it's pretty harsh sounding)...listen to a system without the tweeters for an idea.

 

But hearing that cannot go that high should be ok in the grand scheme of things. Most of what you hear is midrange anyways. Standard non hi-fi fire alarm speakers are UL listed to reproduce 400 - 4000 hz, which while not best for intelligibility works more often than not.

 

Something else to keep in mind is that boosting/cutting frequencies along the spectrum affects all of the other frequencies. So adding bass will lower treble response and vice versa...

 

You can see this effect on any car stereo.....roll the bass down to -5 or so and you'll notice the high frequency response increases automatically.

Anyways, back OT....you'll be fine.

 

Remember baby screams were centered around 1 kHz for evolution. You'll hear what you need to hear.

The pocket rocket

Thanks for the info. I typically do the freeze dried stuff too, and just pour the hot water into the food bag. You mush bring along a metal cup or something to boil the water? That sure would be a lighter way to do things than the JetBoil. Hmmm...