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Three Fingered Jack Facts
Elevation: 7,844 feet (2,391 m)
Prominence: 2,480 feet (756 m)
Coordinates: 44.478965, -121.843059
Last Eruption: 6,600 years ago
Volcano Type: Summit, Shield Volcano
Nearest City: Santiam Junction
Range: Three Fingered Jack is part of the
Cascade Volcanic Arc
Summits: See The Volcano below.
First Climbed: 1923 by E. McNeal and party
Age: more than 250,000 year old
Three Fingered Jack consists primarily of basaltic
andesite lava and heavily glaciated. This volcano has long been inactive and is highly eroded, having a desiccated, jagged appearance.
Three Fingered Jack is part of the group of volcanoes known as Oregon′s Matterhorns, whose tall, pinnacle spires resemble the Matterhorn in Switzerland.
Ancient Steps
The Molala people, one of the indigenous groups in the northwestern United States, historically inhabited the area around this volcano. Not much is known about Molala culture, other than that the group fished for salmon and collected berries, fruits, obsidian, and dried herbs.
The ancestral lands of the Molala were south of the Columbia river with several areas of seasonal occupation with the purpose of resource exploitation, primarily the salmon and trout. Summers would find the Molala on the Oregon Lava plains above 2000 feet in elevation, to collect local berries and dig for the tubers of camas and wapato.
A famous chief and warrior among the Molala trive was Loshuk, (Crooked Finger) who, which 150 warriors fought against the white men in the Cayuse War.
The Volcano:
Although Three Fingered Jack does not have a high-level conduit filling volcanic plug, its summit sits atop a pyroclastic cone. Another cone lies 350 feet to the south of the major cone, and there are secondary craters on the sides, as well as radial dikes and volcanic plugs.
Known sub-features include two shield volcanoes, Maxwell Butte, 6230 feet and Turpentine Peak 5794 feet. There are six additional known volcanic cones: Duffy Butte, 5,837 feet; a tuya called Hogg Rock, 5,050 feet (which is a flat topped, steep sided volcano formed when lava erupts through a thick glacier); Marion Mountain, 5,351 feet; Red Butte, 5,814 feet; and Marion Peak and Saddle Mountain, which do not have elevations listed.
To the northwest and southwest, there are other shield volcanoes and cinder cones.
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