Lundin Peak

So earlier this year, I signed up for the Boeing Alpine Society’s Basic Climbing Class. It’s basically an intro to Mountaineering.

The class started with a fitness evaluation at Mt. Si… one of the more popular hikes that I had never done. The hike was done in a pouring rain, which has set the tone for the course…

Today was our first outing with the goal of reaching the summit of a peak. The objective was Lundin Peak, but we had a late winter storm move in the day before, which dropped at least a foot of powder / Graupel in the mountains. Swimming and kicking through this mess, we got to one of the way-points late, and we didn’t have enough time to reach the main summit. Also, the conditions weren’t the best… so turning back was for the best.

Lundin Peak from the first of two false summits…

Lundin Peak with the second false summit. The photo does a poor job of showing the sense of scale (with all the snow and clouds), but we would’ve had to rappel down from the summit we were on, climb the second false summit, rappel down that summit, and then climb the actual summit…

To the East of us, was Red Mountain. If you look carefully, you can spot another team from our class that reached the summit.