Luca Pieretti
Support Guide

MEET LUCA

My name is Luca Pieretti, and I grew up in the chaparral hills and right point breaks of Santa Barbara, California. I came to the Sierra Nevada and GTWS first as a Thacher School first-year student for orientation, and then, more formatively, later that year (2017) as a GTWS Range of Light Wilderness Immersion Program student. That profound experience not only helped me develop a range of wilderness and leadership skills, as well as the opportunity for deep self-reflection, but also left me with a deep reverence for the mountains and their creatures, and an unshakeable longing to return. 

I came back to GTWS in 2019 as a humble worker, and again in 2021. Since June 2022, I have spent my summers as the GTWS manager and packer: caring for and packing the donkeys, helping run GTWS, and backpacking and scrambling around the sublime Eastern Sierra. In the months in between my summer work, I earned my Wilderness First Responder certification, a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with distinction from Colorado College, and was accepted into a PhD program in Social Psychology, for which I will be attending this fall. Beyond school and work, I'm an avid runner and nature journal-er, and love to surf, read, write, hike, and create. 

I am eagerly looking forward to another awesome summer among the Foxtails, sharing my awe, curiosity, and deep gratitude for the natural world!