[Justus S.]

Tailgunner (Peak 5842) and Peak 5760(I think this has a name too, but didn’t look it up) Drove up the FS road to Barclay Lake and parked just short of the end near the little spur road off to the north. This road is the start of the climbers path to Gunn Pk. I hadn’t brought details of how to find the trail but some other climbers pointed me to the start off to the right at the fire pit, thanks! I found the path fairly easy to follow from here. Although on the lower section, previously logged and not as well defined, I did manage to loose the trail a couple times on the way out. The trail up high, as it breaks out of the trees and before entering the higher alpine, can be a bit brush covered. The brush/ferns got pretty beat in today as there were a number of folks heading to Gunn, easier to follow now. It seemed like a pretty warm day today, and I struggled a bit on the relentless up hill. Btw, water is abundant up high. As I began nearing the saddle between Tailgunner and 5760 I could hear the distant roll of thunder. I decided to push quickly up to Tailgunner before the storm. I found a register from Fay and noticed a few nwhikers names in it. I managed about 20-30min on the summit but finally decided to get out of there pronto and find a place to shelter myself for the coming storm. The storm moved way faster than I thought.

Baring on hike up

Ant pile

Baring

Gunn

Storm

Baring and Barclay

Barclay

Animal

I ended up waiting about 50min for the thunder storm to roll through. I didn’t see any close strikes from my one-sided view, but the thunder was fairly loud a few times.

Storm clouds

Storm

Storm

Storm has passed through

Lightning

Lightning

Lightning

Lightning

Once the storm passed, I quickly made my way to 5760 and headed down to avoid any more storms.

Merchant

Baring to Lennox

A beautiful area and one of my favorites! Notes: About 8hrs roundtrip, 3hrs up to tailgunner. Bugs were a little annoying at times but not enough to keep one away. I did smell some smoke for a short bit on the hike up, but it disappeared soon after. No smoke on hike out.

Baring

Daniel Hinman

[Gimpilator]

One of my favorites as well. Nice storm shots. The lightning ones are neat.

[RichP]

Interesting. There are two summits at 5760 in that area, one is unofficially called "Wingman." http://www.peakbagger.com/peak.aspx?pid=-19887

[Riverside Laker]

I thought the name was Wing, not Wingman. Named for Wing Luke, Seattle City councilman who crashed an airplane there in 1965 (and not found for 3 years).

[puzzlr]

I think those meadows on the ridge between Gunn and Merchant are especially nice, but maybe not in a storm!

[wolffie]

How do you get the lightning shots? Do you have some kind of motion-activated shutter mode?

[Dlab]

Was across the valley on Baring and agree with the heat/humidity, that first 2k feet to hit the ridge was murder.

[evergreen199]

Cool sighting of the long-tailed weasel! Looks like a fun trip.

[Justus S.]

Evergreen, yes, it was nice to see one. Wolffie, they're just video stills. A lighting mode would be cool to have though. RP/RL, thanks for the name info.

[iron]

[Andy D.]

That looks like a really neat area, I'll have to go check that out! Nice storm pictures!

[Magellan]

Good stuff! Thanks for the backstory, RL.

[Riverside Laker]

By the way, there are airplane parts still scattered around the summit. That was 49 years ago -- time flies. Now you need to go to the Wing Luke museum, and stop by the Wing Luke elementary school to complete your Wing education.

[Riverside Laker]