Jack’s Peak – 15.7km, 1345m elevation gain, 7.5 hours.

On May 13th, We started around 7:30am at the trailhead, a yellow gate at 300m elevation.  From there it was a pretty steady climb up the service road.  There was plenty of bear scat and we eventually saw one run across the road.

We started to see snow around 600m and it fully covered the ground at a little less than 800m.  The snow supported us fairly well and we didn’t end up using our snowshoes or crampons.

When we were closer to the summit we discussed avalanche risks and decided to take a direct path up to the summit and then follow the ridge before making our way down.

There was a steep hill close to the top where it we practiced our self-arrest skills with our ice axes.  It was good to practice the motions but the snow was starting to get pretty soft and the conditions weren’t ideal.

It was around 12:30 when we had lunch on the summit.  The ridge back was great as well.  The snow was really soft and we were postholing a lot more but it made travel down a lot softer on the knees.  Several spots were perfect for the alpine buttbogan down.

Views all day and done a lot earlier than expected.