Three-Fingered Jack Mountain, 7,841 ft., juts inconspicuously into its parcel of sky between Mt. Jefferson and Mt. Washington. It's easy to overlook from most of Oregon's major roads, and few common tourist destinations have good views of it even though it is right on the main Cascade Crest near a major mountain pass..... This unusual view is taken from the northeast, using an extremely powerful telephoto lens. It shows the dry pine forests of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, north of Madras.

Mountain Climbers know "Jack's" NE face to be one of Oregon's most treacherous and challenging rock climbs, a grade III-5, first ascended in 1964 by B. Cummings and Ted Davis (yes, Ted, and his agile partners Ron Funke, Bob Bauman, and Tom Bauman*, and John Marshall are the same fellows I myself climbed with in the OSU Alpine Club in '65-66-- between them, they put up numerous first ascents around Oregon, while I took pretty pictures from less precipitous locations!)...... (Back to image)---At the foot of this horrific climbing route lies one of Oregon's most idyllic mountain meadows, lovely Canyon Creek Meadows-- in the picture, it's at the foot of the immense rock wall with the tan band running across it.....

One year after the first ascent of the NE Face, "Jack" became famous in the annals of Oregon's rare wildlife--- During the Fall of 1965 a hunter near the mountain shot and killed a Wolverine, previously considered extinct in Oregon since 1912 (see Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's classic book "Oregon's Furbearing Mammals" (1979)..... More recently reports of wolverine sightings have come in from several locations in Northeastern Oregon, including the Wallowas and the Blue Mountains, and even Steens Mountain in the far southeastern corner of the State has had a sighting... And an amazing "sighting" took place on busy I-84 Freeway near Rowena, just west of The Dalles, where crews picked up the squished remains of a wolverine, in a hot lowland-type location far from any wilderness area (click for picture of the area).... Other names for the very reclusive creature are "Glutton," "Skunk Bear" and "Carcajou." Males can weigh as much as a medium-size dog, up to 50 to 60 pounds. They are famed as the most ferocious mammal for their size in the World! Even wolves, bobcats and grizzly bears give them wide berth.

February 2006, WOLVERINE BREAKING NEWS! Wildlife Biologists in the Northwest are thrilled. After a two year hunt, they captured and radio-collared a live wolverine! The story occurs in the remote Okanogan National Forest, which lies on the eastern side of the Washington Cascades along the Canadian border. Two years ago, from the air, they captured on video a live wolverine running, evading them among snow-covered alpine trees. On February 17, 2006, they captured a juvenile female wolverine in a trap, radio-collared it, and released it back to the wild. This is a big "first," cracking open a door on the most secret and elusive of the Northwest's furbearers, the animal the Native Americans called "Trickster Hero." With such a big success under their belts, next thing you know, the biologists are finally going to capture and radio-collar an Oregon Bigfoot!

Picture immediately above was taken by me recently at the new Cabela's store in Lacey, Washington. The Wolverine specimen resting on their "Wildlife Mountain" was my first "up close" look at a "real" Wolverine.

Sobering Note: During the summer of 2003, the B&B Complex Fire burned up much of the area around Three-Fingered Jack. Hopefully, if there was a resident wolverine population in the Jack area, it survived.

A related note is about Oregon's Grizzly bears. By all accounts, they have been extinct in Oregon since about 1900. One of the last, and most feared of them, was a huge male named Old Reelfoot, who roamed the area of the Southern Cascades/Klamath Basin for decades until he was shot in 1891. Two years later his stuffed body was scaring visitors to the Columbian Exposition in far-away Chicago!

* One of Tom Bauman's notable other first ascents took place in 1965, the awesome East Buttress of Mt. Washington, about 30 miles south of Three-FingeredJack. Cick to see East side of Mt. Washington.