Jack Mountain Winter Ascent

Jack Mountain

Second Winter Ascent

Jan 25-26, 2025

Eric and Ryan

25 miles hike/ski, 8 miles biking

Jack Mountain is a 9,000ft peak in the cascades and one of the Bulgers peaks, so it’s on my list for a winter climb. The two most common routes on the mountain are the south face and the north face nohokomeen headwall. The south face is a class 3/4 rock scramble that is generally climbed in summer or early fall when it is snow free.  The Nohokomeen Headwall is generally climbed in spring when it is a steep snow climb.

As far as I’d researched Jack had previously been climbed once in winter, by Anderson and Wald on Jan 4, 1981 via Nohokomeen.

I’d previously climbed the Nohokomeen Headwall route in early June 2018. At that time it was a pure snow climb, and there were problems crossing a bergschrund which usually shuts down the route in summer.

While boating back from Easy Mox and Redoubt on Ross Lake the previous weekend I got a good view of the Nohokomeen headwall and it looked like there might just barely be enough snow on it to provide a smooth route to the summit. That route is very steep so requires stable snow, which luckily has been the case in WA for most of the month.

Ryan and I decided to go for it before the stable snow window shut. The route involves bushwhacking up May Creek to access the glacier. There are a few options to get to May Creek. The first would be to boat up Ross Lake, and I have a zodiac boat that would work for this purpose. (Note: The Ross Lake Resort water taxi does not run in winter).

The other option is to bike or snowmobile 4 miles down highway 20 from milepost 134 closure to the east bank trailhead, then hike or ski from there along the east bank trail to May Creek. Both approaches start from the Ross Dam trailhead.

Since I had just been there the previous weekend, I knew highway 20 was snow free, and the east bank trail would also be snow free. Based on my June ascent I estimated 3.5 hours to get to May Creek via biking the road and hiking. Boating would take about the same amount of time, since it takes a few hours to triple carry and drag the zodiac to Ross Lake, and an hour to boat to May Creek.

I had just finished a big boating trip for Easy Mox and Redoubt, so decided to mix things up a bit and instead do the bike approach. We would do an overnight trip camping up on the Nohokomeen glacier since that would give amazing views across Ross Lake. We planned to ski since that would increase fun and the snow on the north aspects would likely be skiable, based on my experience in the adjacent west north zone a few days earlier.

Friday night we slept at the Ross Dam trailhead and we were moving by 4:30am Saturday. I estimated that timing would get us to camp in the daylight so we could enjoy the sunset view over the Pickets and Ross Lake.

The road was frosty as expected, so we brought mountain bikes for improved traction. The first mile was slightly up hill, but the remaining 3 miles were down and went by quickly. It was very chilly biking in the predawn cold and I wore mittens and my down jacket.

After half an hour we reached the East Bank trailhead and locked up our bikes. We hiked up the bare trail in hiking boots and trail runners, and were only slowed down occasionally by a few blowdowns.

By 8am we reached May Creek, just after sunrise. I recalled the forest was generally nice and open in 2018, and that was luckily still the case this time. We followed my previous route up to a gap in the cliff band around 4,000ft. There we made a short but steep scramble and found a rap anchor around a tree above. It appeared we were on the standard route.

Just above the cliffs the snow started, so we ditched our approach shoes and switched to ski boots and crampons. Around 4500ft the snow finally got deep enough that we could put the skis and skins on.  At 5000ft we crested the ridge and got our first good views of the summit. The lower glacier was very icy and cracked up on the right side, and the headwall looked thin, with lots of rocks poking out. But there appeared to be a viable snow route up, as I’d seen the previous weekend.

We generally traversed around 5000ft east to May Creek, then skinned up aiming for the left side of the glacier. The cold temperatures and a few wind squalls made us consider sleeping in the trees, but the view would be so much better up on the glacier that we continued with the plan.

We took turns breaking trail up, and passed through an interesting half-pipe feature before reaching the glacier. There we roped up, and continued up. The left side looked very steep, so we angled more towards the middle of the glacier. Unfortunately up higher we got partially blocked by crevasses, but we found a way through and made it to a nice flat campsite at 7800ft by 4:30pm, right on schedule.

The sunset was amazing, and I set up a timelapse with my gopro360 camera as we set up the mega mid tent.

We got to sleep early, and decided to sleep in a bit to climb in the daylight. The forecast lows were in the single digits, and that sounded really cold to be climbing in the dark. But hopefully it would warm up once the sun rose.

Sunday morning we left camp at 7:15am and skinned up to the headwall. Unlike in June 2018, when the face was mostly snow, this time there was a cliff band near the bottom that spanned nearly the entire face. There was luckily one narrow snow/ice finger crossing the cliff band, located directly beneath the summit. So we aimed for that.

Just before the wall got steep we ditched skis and switched to crampons. I led the way up with a solid rack of four pickets, cams, nuts, hexes, and screws. One way or another I was determined to find pro on the climb. We each climbed with one technical tool and one straight shafted tool for plunging.

I made it through the narrow icy gap in the cliff band, then in general climbed up and right. I made a huge traverse right until just below the low point in the ridge, then climbed directly up to the ridge. In general there were enough rock outcrops that I could get rock gear in between us most of the way, with occasional picket placements.

After 3 hours I topped out on the ridge and ran out of gear. So I found a flat area out of the wind and belayed Ryan up on an ice ax anchor. By then we were in the sun, out of the wind, and the weather felt pleasant. Ryan took over and led one last simul pitch up to the summit by 10:45am.

We had great views north to Ross Lake, and I could pick out Redoubt and Easy Mox in the distance, where I had been a week earlier. The south face was very snowy, and it looked like possibly-recent avalanches debris at the base. Inerestingly, there were mountain goat tracks on the SE ridge almost reaching the summit! I’d seen tracks near the summit of Easy Mox the previous weekend, and it’s amazing what the mountain goats can climb in winter. I don’t really know if they’d find any food up that high with all the snow though.

 

We soon simulclimbed back down to the low point on the ridge. From there it made most sense to just downclimb the route, since our 60m rope  would require many rappels and leaving lots of gear. I led the way simul downclimbing, placing the exact same gear as before.

By 12:30pm we were back at the base of the route, and made a quick ski back to camp. After packing up we skied back out, this time hugging the skiers right side of the glacier to avoid all the crevasses. The snow was wind affected and kind of tricky skiing up high, but lower we encountered some pockets of powder. The half pipe was very fun skiing.

Back in the woods we transitioned to crampons around 4500ft, then rapped down the cliff and bushwhacked out to the trail by sunset. From there it was an easy hike back to the road, and we biked back to the trailhead by 9:30pm.

 

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