The link below goes to a trip report with embedded pix. Below is just the text.
TRIP REPORT: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vQO7ahfcjP8sc94SPBi2at6QwJrGKZ64
If you want to read the captions for the photos just hit "I" to see them.
PHOTOS: https://photos.app.goo.gl/XeavChpbqryJMgvo7
Last year I had the privilege to climb West McMillan Spire in the Southern Pickets with Bryon Snapp, Amy Dale, and Mason Smith. From the summit of WMS, I became infatuated with Mt Fury in the Northern Pickets thinking what an incredible view it must be to stand there. Not knowing much about the climb itself, I came home and started reading about it. In a nutshell, it is a hard approach like anything in the Pickets, a complex ridge to maneuver, then ending in snow up to 40 deg to the summit before retracing your steps back. It certainly seemed in my wheelhouse with enough grit and fitness. I ended up posting it as a club climb during the 2nd week of Aug. Unfortunately, the weather report forced us to cancel that climb and other commitments left no window to put it back on during the prime summer window. Shonee and I had talked about IF a weather window opened in late Sep maybe we would venture up there and give it a go. The timing was not going to work out for the rest of the crew originally slated on Fury.
Well who would have thunk that high pressure would present itself in an area known for bad weather not that far from Canada at the end of Sep. The weather report showed awesome weather Thur, Fri, and most of Sat until weather coming in early Sat eve. So we got the time off for a Thur-Sun trip, booked a water tax for our entry and exit that shaves 12 miles of hiking and went for it. The game plan was to just see how it goes knowing the most likely trip was to summit Luna Peak (1 hr from our planned high camp at Luna Col) and MAYBE get lucky for a window on Fury but hopefully at the very least get to check out part of the ridge approach from high camp. Given our low chance on Fury, we opted to leave technical gear behind other than an ax and crampons.
Though getting to the top of Fury would have been AWESOME, the summit of Luna Peak offers arguably the best view in all of the N. Cascades and technically “easy”. We would be more than satisfied if that was our only accomplishment. Getting to Luna Peak (if you take the water taxi to Big Beaver Trail) involves about 10 miles of hiking pretty good trail to start that leaves you pretty optimistic. Though once you exit the trail to cross Big Beaver Creek and the bushwhack up Access Creek, you will be HUMBLED. They don’t call the Pickets “the most rugged terrain in the lower 48” for nothing. Unable to find any semblance of a trail for many many hours we fought up the Access Creek area. Once we neared the upper portion we FINALLY found a trail to quickly lose it over and over and over. It is just too dense of vegetation to keep a consistent trail for an area that isn’t visited often enough. Eventually we made our camp where damn Snafflehounds ate the shoulder pads and straps on my backpack during the night.
Making some adjustments to make my pack usable the next morning we continued up several steep gullies, REALLY sketchy steep heather slopes until we reached our camp at Luna Col. Once setting up camp, we headed up to Luna Peak where we enjoyed INSANE views of the Northern and Southern Pickets. Did I mention INSANE! The work to get to this summit is easily worth any effort you put in.
After spending quite a bit of time up here we headed back down to camp and opted to take the few hours that we had before dark to explore part of the ridge to Mt Fury so we had beta for an eventual summit in the future. This ended up being A LOT of fun exploring new territory with fun scrambling up and down. Besides more and more insane views it gave us the confidence to know that we can come back for Fury and actually get to the top.
Eventually back at camp we enjoyed a glorious sunset from our incredible camp. Knowing weather was coming in and the fact that we summited Luna Peak and got to explore the Fury ridge, we planned to start heading down the next morning instead of waiting until Sun. The next morning we awoke to heavy overcast that turned to snow within 10 min of leaving camp and eventually rain as we descended. Given the wet, steep terrain we took extra caution on our descent eventually making it to Luna Camp on the Big Beaver Trail after quite of bit of wet bush whacking and creek crossings where we had planned to camp for a Sun departure. However, getting there at 2pm presented us with the option to speed hike/run the last 10 miles and MAYBE get a boat out the same day and not spend an additional night in the rain. So we speed hiked/jogged at fast as our bodies would allow us and was able to make it to the dock in time to get a message to my wife via my Garmin InReach to call the Ross Lake Resort and come and get us. It was a pretty awesome feeling to know that pushing ourselves paid off as we enjoyed our burgers, fries, and beers in Marblemount before we crashed in Shonee’s van for the night leaving us with just a drive home on Sun!!!
In the end we covered around 36 miles including numerous water crossings, many miles of bushwhacking, slick lichen covered rock, steep gullies, sketchy steep heather, and plenty of gorgeous views and don’t regret a minute of it and will definitely be back. Mt Fury is on the priority list for next summer. The Pickets is far from a walk in the park but the suffering is WELL worth the effort and I highly recommend folks give it a try.