[TR] Pickets - E & W Fury, Luna - Standards 08/15/2019

[geosean]

Trip: Pickets - E & W Fury, Luna - Standards

Trip Date: 08/15/2019

Trip Report:

 

@Albuquerque Fred and I teamed up again... West Fury as the main event, East Fury happened to be in the way, Luna was convenient.

 

Day 1:

We took the water taxi to Big Beaver, leaving pretty late at 10:30am on Thursday. In about 4 hours of really good trail we were at the good log crossing right where it was supposed to be. A GPS was clutch here as there is no indication along the trail of where to turnoff and really no trail to the log. After thrashing some brush on the other side of Big Beaver Creek we wound up on the wrong (south) side of Access Creek. It is misplaced on the map by about .1 mile, shown to the south of reality; there is a tiny creek about where Access is shown on the map. After some bushwhacking upward we eventually found the climber's trail which was surprisingly good. I guess people heard about the 4G on the summit. We walked into Luna Col camp at 8pm, just in time to get one picture of the northern Pickets before they dissapeared for the next 3 days.

Water is acceptably ample on BB trail and the traverse to Luna Col, lacking at the Col however. There is snow in the col and a tarn below the snow patch a 10 minute walk to the north of the col.

 

Obligatory boat ride photo:

 

The lake was a little low:

 

Only good view of the southern Pickets, from the traverse to Luna:

 

Our best view of the Furys:

 

Day 2:

We awoke at 4:45 am to lots of clouds. Onward to the Furies! Over 3 major humps and down into the basin SE of E Fury. It was all snow free which made for tedious travel. We found a ledge system at 6800' to round the SE buttress of Fury, then turned right and scrambled a talus and slab slope near a stream (last water!) We gained the east edge of the glacier at about 7400' due south of point 7820'. Crampons were required for the bare ice and moderately steep firm-ish snow ascending the east ridge of E Fury. There seems to be some mixed scrambling required at both the east and west approaches to the snowfield just below the summit. (We went up the east and down the west).

Onward to West Fury!

Down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up. Three towers and the summit block with loose crappy gullies between each.

Tower 1: on a tip, we descended 100' on snow to a talus ledge, then scrambled up, left and up some more, then left again (you'll figure it out) to wrap around the tower not quite summiting. We soloed this.

Oh, by the way, I should interject that since the lower glacier we were in total whiteout conditions and would remain so all day. This made route-finding challenging and despiriting.

Tower 2: we climbed directly. Descending was trickier; scramble down an eroded dike/gully, when you approach a notch and a filthy gully on skier's right take to the arete and downclimb into the filthy gully. Legend has it descending the dike to the bottom leads to 5th class no holds traversing to get around the arete. Soloed all this.

Tower 3: climb directly up a chimney just right of the obvious one. Easy soloing by now.

Then we scrambled to the summit! Three times in fact; the whiteout kept making us think we were there just long enough to get excited, then another rise would loom in the white. Eventually we did make it and signed in as #22 in the register.

We descended by rapping all 3 towers. Tower 1 required a 60m rope.

Long and tedious trip back over E Fury, multiple basins, and many towers and rises back to camp. 12 hours round trip going hard, but with slow route finding.

 

Morning right out from camp:

 

Outrigger Peak and the south Fury Glacier:

 

Mixed step on the east side of the summit of E Fury:

 

Fred on the final summit ridge:

 

Me descending somewhere between the Furies:

 

Fred descending somewhere between the Furies:

 

Gloruous summit photo on West Fury! Worth it for the views!!:

 

Register:

 

What, you dont mountaineer with manhattans? I left the shaker at home so we had to drink them warm, but it was pretty chilly out anyway:

 

 

The rest is history. Sleep, lounge, climb Luna. We descended to Luna Camp day 3, then hiked all the way to the car day 4.

 

Victory pose on Luna summit:

 

Lots of this on the way out:

 

The summit register on Luna was totally full, please replace it if you go there.

3 summits

49 miles

14,000'

12oz of manhattans

Gear Notes:
60m rope for rappels Crampons Axes We took some rock gear but didn't use it. Manhattans

Approach Notes:
Big Beaver to Access Creek, cross Big Beaver Creek at 2520', cross Access Creek to south side at 3900'. Trail was great, trail into Access basin was decent climbers trail, good even, in places.

Edited August 21, 2019 by geosean

[thedylan]

Awesome! What a special place.

[JasonG]

So crazy all the traffic that West Fury got this year.  Too bad you didn't get the views!!

[geosean]

8 hours ago, JasonG said:

So crazy all the traffic that West Fury got this year.  Too bad you didn't get the views!!

I know, 1 visit ever 5 or so years over decades, then 3 this summer! Views are over rated anyway... I didn't have any on Redoubt in July.

[Szyjakowski]

Nice report Sean. 

Did you study geology at WWU?