Gunn Peak — Friday, Aug. 22, 2025

An amazing night of solitude out at Gunn Peak! I had somewhat ambitiously hoped to hit Gunshy, Gunn, Tailgunner, and Wing - but after setting up camp and getting up Gunn and Tailgunner I decided a chill evening poking around with my camera sounded more fun. 😅

While the photos are beautiful and I know this place is becoming more popular, let me be very straightforward: THIS IS NOT JUST A HIKE. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THIS TRAIL just because you can find the track on AllTrails and it is lower mileage. On my way out on Saturday, I passed a few people trying to go up who were not prepared for the physicality and more technical nature of the trail (and I’m only talking the first 1.5 miles, not climbing Gunn itself).

The approach trail involves 3000’ of gain in a mile and change, some routefinding, and a number of areas that require the use of hands and feet to go up or down. I included a photo of one such vertical stretch. The trickiest in my opinion comes at around 4000’ when you reach the area of the dried waterfall basin. Here you have to drop STEEPLY on questionable footing and a very very narrow pathway and a fall would smash you up pretty good.

And, of course, if you get up you still have to get back down, which can be the scarier and more difficult part for those who aren’t familiar with that sort of terrain.

So, not to be a party pooper, but I think it’s important to be real about conditions. This one probably sounds pretty doable on paper to inexperienced folks - especially if they can’t really conceptualize what 3000’ gain is like - but is a challenging burner of a trail, even for people with plenty of skill. Don’t take it lightly, as it does involve comfort with difficult terrain and exposure even just to get to the famous tarn.

With all that said, I had a great trip! It took me about three hours to get up to the tarn area; I wasn’t originally planning on camping there, but given that there is no running water currently, I decided camping near a water source was the best bet.

There are plenty of sites to be had all around the general area, but please be gentle and remember to only camp on established sites or rock. There’s a lot of fragile, beautiful alpine goodness up there and it needs to be respected!

Besides the famous infinity tarn, there are two other tarns sort of above it to the right. Then there are some in the small canyon you cross to head toward Gunn. There is also a beautiful meadowy area below the Gunn trail that had several other tarns, though I only saw it from above.

Blueberries are insaaaaane right now. A great way to keep morale up as you slog.

I ran into two guys day climbing Gunn and we ended up climbing together. All the reports and beta you may have read are accurate. As you enter the boulder field directly below Gunn, curve right up the gully, aiming for the highest copse of trees on the side of Gunn. There is then an obvious sort of angle in the rock to scramble up. There is some dripping water here so be careful with your feet and hands where it’s wet.

From there, you wind through the trees out onto a scree field. There’s a bit of a trail but you eventually hang a left and head up an obvious gully that leads o a little notch. (Fun note: Baker is perfectly framed when you peek through the notch!).

Pop through the notch and work left along the narrow ledge. I didn’t find this ledge as narrow or worrisome as some reports described, but I’m also generally comfortable with exposure and heights.

A short rock scramble gets you to the summit!

We found the “register” - an old Nalgene bottle - but it’s just a collection of torn, loose pages and there’s no pen. If someone wanted to resupply sometime, that’d be great!

Flying ants were the summit kings, but weren’t insanely annoying.

On the way back, my new climbing buddies (shoutout Dane and Josh!) and I split at the Tailgunner turnoff; they were heading back to the cars and I wanted to get up Tailgunner before the day caught up with me.

Tailgunner is straightforward and fun. A nice large summit! Someone had left a little hot wheels car posed on a rock at the summit… in the spirit of leave no trace, I took it with me (but don’t worry, it will have a nice home with my nephew).

I probably would have had time to get up Wing but once down from Tailgunner and at camp I decided I was happy with my day as it was.

I had the entire expanse to myself until 6 PM or so when a lone overnighter arrived. He was planning an early summit the next morning and camped out of sight from me, so I still felt wonderfully secluded.

Woke up for sunrise, then packed everything up and made the slog back down. I had a couple tough moments downclimbing on the way out with my shorter legs, but I’m used to that!

Took a little over two hours to get back to my car. I knew there had been a series of recent break-ins at the Barclay Lake TH so I was holding my breath a bit, but all was well. Phew!

This was a great one and I’ll definitely be back. But it makes you earn it!