On Luna Peak & Lessons Learned

Luna Peak, looking gnarly.

From late 2020 to early 2021, I spent hours on my computer dreaming about all the alpine areas and routes I wanted to get done in the spring and summer. Sometimes I was attached to a specific route, sometimes I just wanted to get out to an area I hadn’t been to yet. And so it was that Luna Peak first entered my consciousness, as a gateway into the Pickets. Sure, I’d prefer a fifth-class climb in the area, but if all else failed, Luna would do. 

And so it was that I learned the importance of honing in on group dynamics and setting group guidelines, goals, and expectations before the outset of any trip. This may seem fairly obvious to most people, but I tend to be the type of person who has to learn things the hard way, through trial and error. 

Summer was approaching fast – or it had already arrived, depending on your definition of summer. I hadn’t found anyone interested in heading out to the Pickets with me for something like Mt. Terror or Mt. Fury, or, more accurately, I had been too distracted with other things to adequately try to plan for such a trip. 

So, when I saw someone post about an extra spot on their planned itinerary for Luna Peak, I piped up and was able to join the trip with three men who had already committed. I counted my lucky stars that I wouldn’t have to do any of the organizing, from the permits to the team members to the 4-day itinerary. I only spoke to the man who had reserved the permits, which felt a little strange to me as the trip approached, but again, I was so preoccupied with other things that I wasn’t very concerned. The trip leader had relayed to me some broad information of his own experience and skills, as well as those of the other two teammates. We sent a few texts back and forth and that was about it; he knew that I had climbed the Grand, and that seemed to be enough information to make me an acceptable risk. I assumed that I was the wild card, that the other three men knew each other and each other’s capabilities well. 

We met up at 7:00 or 8:00am at the Ross Dam Trailhead. It took us some time to get moving. We were all debating whether to bring crampons or only microspikes, and ultimately decided to go with crampons. But one guy was also debating which boots to bring, and opted against hauling his double plastic boots up a North Cascade peak on an unseasonably warm June day. I wasn’t sure why he had brought double plastic boots with him at all, but as someone whose extremities run cold as a result of Reynaud’s, I wasn’t about to judge him. 

Probably the worst view from the boat, because I suck at taking pictures. Our boat driver was in the Cascades for the summer from North Carolina, which was obvious from his accent, blaring country music, and vociferous aversion to masks.

We took a boat from the dam to Big Beaver Trailhead, shaving 7 miles off of our approach. According to Summit Post, this would leave us with 8 miles of established trail to Luna Camp, followed by 1.5 miles of bushwhacking and stream crossings to reach Access Creek; we would camp shortly beyond Access Creek for our first night. In reality, we clocked somewhere between 12 and 15 miles on our first day, probably partially as a result of route-finding and navigational challenges on our end and partially as a result of the chronic underestimation of distance and time by those who write trip reports in the climbing community (I could probably write an entire rant about this, but I’ll save it for another day). 

One of the creek crossings, although I lost track because we erroneously crossed extra creeks (or the same creeks multiple times?) on the way in.

On the hike in, it quickly became apparent that one member of our party was moving much more slowly than the rest of us. We arrived at Access Creek much later than I would have anticipated, but still before dark. Shortly after our arrival, our slower teammate asked our trip leader to recap the rest of the route for him again, with a particular attention to how steep it would be. Something like 35 to 55 degrees at the steepest, he said. And then our first problem arose: the slower team member had not brought the right crampons for his boots. He had automatic (or semi-automatic?) crampons, but since he’d left his double plastic boots back at the car, he only had his hiking boots with him. The crampons would stay on for relatively flat snow, but try to take them up steep snow, and they would fall off. 

Not my tent.

I must have already been huddled up in my tent when the conversation started. My feet had gotten wet at several of the creek crossings, as I’d opted to walk through knee-deep water rather than trust my balance across a precarious log five feet above the water. It hadn’t been a problem until we arrived at camp, where we set up our tents on the snow as the sun was setting, at which point my feet began to feel like bricks of ice inside my shoes. I opened up two Hot Hands and put them in my socks, but when they didn’t seem to be heating up, I crawled inside my sleeping bag with all the clothes I had packed and curled up in a ball, alternatively sitting up and rubbing the Hot Hands onto my toes and having to switch to laying down as I nodded off to sleep. It was probably around 9:00pm, and I had woken up at 3:00am to drive out to Ross Dam that morning. I was borderline delirious between the lack of sleep and the cold; my mind was consumed by thoughts of the warm layers I had chosen not to pack and the warm tea that I couldn’t bother to make myself.

Our plans for the 4-day excursion were quickly becoming threatened, and the trip leader and third guy were understandably becoming upset. If this guy didn’t have the right crampons and couldn’t make it to the col, where we were all planning on camping for the second night, then he could keep one of our 2-person tents and stay at Access Creek for the next two days. Everyone else would go up to the col as planned, drop our now-single-2-person-tent up there, summit, and camp at the col for one night before heading back down. We could either all three squeeze into a 2-person tent, or the trip leader offered that he could bivy outside for the night. 

So, that would all be a bit annoying, but it was still doable. But then, it seemed that the slower-team-member-who-had-the-wrong-crampons had other issues. His knee hurt so badly that he wasn’t sure he could wait two days to leave, and his hip hurt too. His injuries might swell or stiffen up and make getting out a real challenge if he were to wait on them. 

At this point, the other guys let him know that his only option apart from waiting at camp for a day or two was to call Search and Rescue. Our slower-now-injured team member offered up the potential of hiking out on his own, but he had no satellite communication device, no GPS track, and no compass. He would have no way of calling SAR if he got lost, so it would be necessary for another group member to call SAR on one of our devices. 

I was surprised by what I was hearing. I had come to understand that the guys didn’t know each other as well as I thought they did, but I still would’ve assumed that their primary commitment would be to each other – to making sure everyone was able to make it down safely, without unnecessarily draining community resources – rather than to peakbagging. 

As I laid in my sleeping bag – in truth, my boyfriend’s lighter, less warm sleeping bag because I had been intent on only bringing my 38L pack instead of my 65L, which meant bringing his 25 degree bag instead of my 15 degree bag and his lighter sleeping pad instead of my own – I told myself that, if I did not heat up in the morning, I would head back, and I could take this guy out with me. I fell asleep not knowing if the guys had come to any sort of resolution, and although I hoped that they had, I accepted that we would most likely be figuring it out in the morning.  

I was content to sleep in, uncharacteristically not setting myself a single alarm but instead allowing myself to be woken up by my teammates. When they woke me up a bit after 6:00am, I thought it was maybe a bit late in the day, but I was grateful that the sun had found its way into our valley and I was quickly warmed by its brilliant rays.

The thought of turning back for the cold quickly faded from my mind. Yet, the question of what we were going to do for our teammate, who seemed so intently in need of leaving as soon as possible, still bore down on me. It was clear that there was no alpine start to be had, from our wake-up time to this indecision. My other two teammates were dead set on attempting to summit Luna, and that meant that our third teammate could either wait or call SAR, but they would not be cutting their trip short on his account. And he was not content to wait, so it seemed increasingly likely that he would call SAR if that was his only other option. I tried to get confirmation from him about what he would do if all three of us attempted the summit, but he refused to give a clear answer. The verbal stand-off continued as the sun bore down on us, heating and melting the snow as we stood, stuck. 

I was frustrated that everyone seemed so flippant about calling SAR; in hindsight, and after talking to the trip coordinator, I now realize that the other two men didn’t think that our ill-prepared teammate was actually injured, and they hoped he would just wait patiently behind. But at the time, I felt like we were all standing on the precipice of what seemed to me to be an incredibly irresponsible decision, to neglect a teammate and make them into someone else’s problem. And in this case, the someone else was volunteers and taxpayers, none of whom had signed up for the trip to Luna Peak like we had.

I offered to hike down with our hurt party member, and we ultimately made it more than 20 miles back to our cars on second day. It was a long, grueling descent, and he was clearly in a lot of pain for the entire journey. I had to navigate us through the bushwhacking and stream crossings, since he didn’t have a GPS, compass, or track of the route. I was also the only one between the two of us with a satellite device in case of emergency. 

It was an extremely difficult day, both mentally and physically. And it really shook me. I guess it shook me awake. There were a lot of things I took for granted about the climbing community, and now I know better. There were a lot of other red flags and issues that I’m not going to mention here, at least for now, because this is about as much as I can process at the moment. 

In short, this has been a powerful reminder to get to know people before agreeing to committing objectives with them, whether that means chatting in-depth about experience, skills, and comfort levels, or, ideally, going out for a more mellow day before doing anything more major. The experience solidified my gratitude for coughing up the money for an InReach, and for ensuring that I had read about the route, had downloaded a track, and knew how to use a compass to get us out, even if I was “supposed” to be taking a backseat on the trip. I have realized that people don’t necessarily know what they’re doing just because they’ve done other similar things, or even other things that might be considered harder by certain parameters, and that some people are bound to overestimate their own and/or others’ skills and experience.

But most of all, I’ve learned that something that I had taken for granted – that people come first, especially in the mountains – is not something that everyone stands by. And that feels a bit like a punch in the stomach, but it also gives me clarity moving forward about who I know I am and what’s most important to me in partners. I care about your abilities, skills, and experience to some degree, but most of all, I care that you are a decent human being. I care that we support and uplift each other.