[TR] Luna Peak - Big Beaver - Access Creek 7/14/2007

[SGPeas]

Trip: Luna Peak - Big Beaver - Access Creek

 

Date: 7/14/2007

 

Trip Report:

Laurie and I met Gabriel and Ian on Saturday morning, July 14th, for the boat shuttle to the Big Beaver trailhead. It took us about 4.5 hours to get to Luna Camp through the amazing old growth cedar forest of the Big Beaver valley. The 100 Hikes description of the trail comments that it is the largest grove of western red cedar in the United States.

 

 

Thanks to beta from Toast and Dustin B, we knew the log jam formerly at the Access Creek confluence with the Big Beaver was now downstream by about a quarter mile, just below the "v" in Beaver on the USGS quad map. Unfortunately there is no "v" marked on the actual trail. There is, however, an obvious stream, the first significant one crossed after Luna Camp, which is an excellent landmark. We descended and found the large, jumbled log jam of new and old logs and crossed, finding a good access point closer to the upstream edge of the logs.

 

The log jam from the E side of the river; we accessed it further upstream, to the right:

 

 

 

Turning north, we bushwhacked up to Access Creek, encountered it at a convenient crossing location, and then started gaining elevation rapidly (almost straight uphill) in a northwesterly direction. Starting to traverse we found what appeared to be the bench around 3400 that tazz described. We started seeing boulder clearings to the south side of the creek, but were not yet at 3800, and there was still more alder on the south side above potential crossing locations. We ran into slide alder on the north side, tried to cross but could not find a good point to do so, then continued up through the alder at a painstakingly slow pace for 100 or so feet (or less?). We then crossed out of frustration and diminishing daylight and found a good spot that was clear on the other side. With more alder in front of us on the south side of the creek (still below the 3800 marked crossing), we did a large ascent, then descent on rocks, and found our way to the upper part of Access Creek basin, 4300 feet and campsites on a sand and gravel bar. Arrived at 9:15, 11 hours total foot travel this day and 5 hours from the departure from the Big Beaver Trail.

 

On day 2, we needed to ascend one of the 3 gullies in the photo below, all still with an appreciable amount of snow in them:

 

 

 

Toast and Dustin B had descended the rightmost and steepest gully. We followed Tazz's recommendation and essentially followed the snow on the right up and around to the left of the vegetation-covered bench in the middle of the photo, then angled up across open rocks, then right up the hard snow of the middle gully. The left gully is the shortest and broadest of the three. We later did some reconnaissance and if you take this one, there appears to be a traverse on steep slopes on the far side that may be hairy with full packs. We didn't explore this fully, but decided against using it on the return trip. The middle gully was full of snow and was probably 30-35 degrees of hard snow under 1-2 inches of softer snow. It continues for quite a ways past the view in the photo. Crampons would not have been helpful on the ascent so we kicked steps the whole way up.

 

At the ridgetop, we reassessed or initial goal of camping at Luna Col that night. The traverse across Luna's SE face was mostly snow covered and looked steep. We’d had enough of steep snow, and the arm below us looked very inviting for camp. I believe this is the same arm Tazz describes in her trip report (see link at Challenger-Luna Cirque report by Toast). It also features amazing views of the Southern Pickets, which at the time were socked in at their jagged summits. We felt that a camp here would be nice and would allow us to do the summit with less in our packs. The evening was nice, but never quite cleared out on the Pickets, and was VERY buggy. We'd heard reports of bad bugs from fellow travelers, but this was the first time they really stormed us with full force.

 

On Day 3 we awoke early in thoughts that if it was cold enough, we'd use our crampons to ascend on the traverse. One concern was that we saw two spontaneous releases of large ice chunks from a hanging snowfield that crossed a high point on our route. There were steep slabs/cliffs below, so getting caught in one of these releases would have been a major problem. This snowfield is poised to go and will probably not last the summer.

 

This is the traverse, taken from our camp:

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the hanging snowfield, after we crossed its path:

 

 

 

We found that the snow was quite soft and was much easier than we expected. And the traverse was also easier than we expected, with the only steep stuff high at the top, near the pass. The rock scramble to the false summit was a delight, with the views getting better by each step. From the false summit to the true, north summit, we found it best to descend on the SE side about 30-50 feet and make our way over on ledges with secure holds, but quite airy. It was no problem to regain the ridge for the final summit block. The Pickets had cleared, with clouds billowing behind them to the west, and we enjoyed 2 hours of bug-free viewing on the false summit, in the heart of amazing and rugged wilderness. Total time to the true summit from camp was about 3 hours.

 

Enjoying the views from the true summit:

 

 

We descended to camp, then packed up and over to the same gully from Access Creek basin. The gully, unlike the soft south-facing snow of the traverse was still quite hard, and we found we needed to downclimb it for at least 100-150 feet. Once we finally decided we could turn face out, we discovered the slope had not lessened much nor had the snow softened. Both of us needed to employ self arrest a couple of times and the descent was rather nervewracking on account of needing so much concentration. It's not clear to me that a rope or crampons would have made things easier. It's just a tough gully to get down while there is snow in it.

 

Here's the downclimb at the upper/steepest part.

 

 

We camped in buggy conditions (there was very little breeze up hi during our trip) and departed at 6 a.m. on our fourth day to make the 4 p.m. shuttle pickup at the Big Beaver dock. Descending the basin, we found the obvious cairn down at the lower "corner" of the first boulder field and found a good crossing some 30 feet into the brush. After the crossing at this point, there is a patch of forest before the next bunch of alder, which we'd encountered on the ascent. My idea was to gain elevation in the forest and cross the alder high, so as to have as short a distance as possible on the inverted fan shape of the slide. Not such a bad idea, at first, but it soon proved to be a problem. We stayed high and instead of staying in the forest, we encountered high gullies and slides from above which had brought large trees and other debris into our path. Descending and crossing these areas with loose, broken branches and large trees was quite hazardous given the greater slope. We crossed several of these bands and then finally descended into easier, open forest. The bottom line is that whether high or low, the path in and out of the upper part of Access Creek is not easy. We found our original crossing of Access Creek and revisited the log jam. After a while on the other side we encountered a footpath my first instinct, after 2+ days of no trail, was to wonder why this way trail to the river crossing had not been reported to us. It was, of course, the trail, and in total, we'd taken 4.5 hours to descend from the basin to the trail. We huffed it out in time for a very refreshing swim in the lake under growing clouds. Nothing better than a cleansing dip when you've been covered in bugs, dirt, needles, and other grime for 3 days.

 

Thanks very much for route information from Dustin B, Toast, Tazz and DonnV.

 

[alpenho]

Nice trip and pics, I'm jealous of your views from Luna - by the time we got there all we could see was cloud! I forgot to mention in my TR (7.15.07) when we descended Access Cr we found a single log crossing that had obviously been used about 50 meters upstream from the confluence of Access and Big Beaver. The tree was still pretty fresh and had bark, so it was only slightly slippery with the rain - we did the classic 4-point scoot about 25 ft to cross.

[tazz]

Ha! thats the same log we used, alpenho. I bet it is no longer there after the floods.

 

Good stuff you guys! Thanks for the report.

[iain]

Anyone who enjoys climbing in the NW should make sure they visit Luna Col once in their lives. I don't think there's a finer spot in the N. Cascades.

[iluka]

Nice TR... what a trip... certainly left you well prepared for that rugged ascent of Hawkins this past weekend!

 

 

[iluka]

Nice TR... what a trip... certainly left you well prepared for that rugged ascent of Hawkins this past weekend!

 

 

[Toast]

Nice job guys

[Dustin_B]

Nice. Makes me wish we would have tried to get over to the true summit of Luna. At the time we were content with the south summit. good work.