Gunn Peak (9/16/21, 8:27:45AM)

Gunn Peak is a fantastic scramble if you like to suffer! Lots of steep slippery trail, scrambling up to class 4 including some exposed sections and ridges, and the trail opens up after 2 miles into beautiful rocky alpine backcountry. It's often compared to close by Mount Baring and the stats and pain are very similar. I would say that Gunn is slightly harder with a better reward due to backcountry and spicier scrambling Trail Conditions: The trail is marked pretty well with orange and pink ribbons in the forest and cairns for the rest, but still easy to get off track as we did many times. There is a river to cross shortly after the old road ends. It is straightforward to hop across rocks and logs at the right spot. We had a little trouble finding the path though. Then a mile of steep forest travel similar to Baring. After that it opens up a bit for another mile. You'll start to encounter some rock, the trail is overgrown with vegetation in many places, and you'll have some narrow dirt trail with steep drop-offs. The final mile is rocky alpine meadow with the peak beckoning you in the distance. There are a number of class 3 sections to scramble. Some more narrow ridges. And what I felt was the most technical challenge, about 50' of class 4 to get off of the large boulder field couloir. Plenty of scrambling after this point to the summit, but not as spicy as that section. We wore helmets up and down from the boulder field. Heard rockfall in distance once, but it was probably from the goat. There are 4-5 easy snow sections to go over, only one had running water underneath. And one upper snow section which is steeper, we navigating around top on the way up and below it on the way down. There are several water sources in the middle of route and we filled up on the way down.