[SultanHiker]

I was up here 2 years ago with a friend (trip report). Often trip reports say: “Once you climb Gunn, you really never want to do it again.” -- or something similar. But my 15 year old, Mason has become my new hiking partner, and I wanted to share the area with him. I also wanted to explore more of the plane wreckage below wing, and see if I could find and retrieve a complete goat skull from the fresh cougar kill I discovered 2 years ago (hoping it was sun bleached by now). Also there was a photography goal spurred on by another thread. There was a moderate earthquake (4.6 just west of Monroe) that shook our house in Sultan just before 3am on 7/12/19. Scared my wife and I wide awake. I got up and checked on the kids, and went back to sleep with my alarm previously set for 5:30. Got up, ate, grabbed coffee on the way and headed up the road to Barclay Lake Trailhead. On the way, we chased a deer up the road for 100 yards. He finally found a turn out and just stood there as I passed by. So I hopped out and snapped a few shots.

Left trailhead at 7:23a There are good reports on the interwebs on how to find the trail. But the first hint I have is about crossing Barclay Creek. Do Not Cross the whole creek on the logs. There is an island where the creek splits. First, you rock hop to get on the logs, but immediately after, you should scramble over the logs and head climbers’ left onto the little island. You can pick up the trail better using this route. Your natural inclination to use the length of the logs to bear right and cross the whole creek. But this makes it much harder to find the good path.

Don't follow these logs. Turn to the left just off frame.

The ascent to the ridge was brutal as always. Nothing to note. Trail difficult to follow in a couple places. But mostly discernable if you are used to looking for faint climbers’ trails.

Love to camp near the infinity tarn. Arrived at 10:12a We packed smaller bags and headed out at 10:55a. The ridge up there sits at about 5400ft. You can follow a couple cairns from the ridge that line you up to drop 60ft into the gully between you and Pt 5760. Then look for a cairn at the other side that will line you up with a trail that pops you back up 60ft and skirts around the 5760, along a route that lets you not lose too much elevation. You should only have to drop to around 5245ft. Before sidehilling and gaining to the talus below Gunn. The “hidden ramp” heads climber’s right, just below the summit block. It is nasty as most reports say. The hardest part is just the beginning couple moves. If you like bouldering, then it’s not a big obstacle. [Ignore my video commentary. I thought it was longer and harder in my memory. The video shows the toughest parts. Harder way down...] Stay slightly right and get into the small trees after that. Head to the notch between the two Gunn summits and turn left behind Gunn, across the dirt ledge, and scramble to the summit. Arrived 12:12p. Signed the register (which I had placed two years ago).Mason doesn’t like to linger. He likes to get things done. So after about 10 minutes, we moved on.

Packing summit bag

Infinity tarn on Tailgunner shoulder

Gunn

Backside

Me on Gunn's summit with the east summit in the background. Only view we had...

I thought about bagging Gunn’s east summit. Mason wanted to move on to Gunnshy right away. I didn’t know when I’d be back this way, so I told him to wait, and I’d be right back. He decided to come anyway. It’s really only an 8 minute detour round trip. The down climb of the ramp is always harder than up.

looking over to the true summit

We wished we had the time to look for a shortcut to Gunnshy. But I tried that last time and didn’t have any luck. Plus I wanted that goat skull. As we descended the reddish dirt scree/slope (heading to the basin that drains into Gunn Lake), we caught movement on the snow pack below us a couple hundred yards away. A black bear had seen us and took off running the opposite direction. Couldn’t get my DSLR out fast enough to get a pic before he disappeared at the far edge of the snow. We found the skull and some vertebrae, but couldn’t find anything else. The skull was missing one horn so I didn’t take it. Not much of a trophy with one horn…

looking back at Gunn

Tailgunner

Mason on the snow with Gunnshy peeking out

Gunn Lake

From the lake (completely melted out) you can pick your own route to Gunnshy. But for us, visibility was fluctuating rapidly. I remembered last time I had chosen a more direct route, but that means you may run into obstacles and have to backtrack, unless you get lucky. Or it’s slow going, even though it’s shorter distance. So we stayed mainly to the right side (bearing NE), then more northward, utilizing the talus to gain altitude until around 5600ft. Then it was slowly ascending on slabs while heading NW to the summit. There was a photograph, from another thread, that I was trying to recreate. So we kept an eye out for possible locations on our way to the summit. We were a little too high, and resolved to take a slightly lower track on the way back.

Interesting rock on our way up

Got to Gunnshy at 3:00p and spent about 20 minutes there. The clouds were moving quickly, so we kept getting peekaboo views. We set our sites on Tailgunner.

Mason on Gunnshy

Jumpoff Ridge

Me on Gunnshy

On the way, we found the location of the 105 year old photograph! Weather kept obscuring Gunn and Wing, so it was hard to get it just right. Plus 105 years had gone by. Full thread here with my updated photography on page #2 On the way back to the lake, we saw a “trail” across the spur that forces you down to the lake. It looked like maybe an animal trail, because it just fizzled out. But we made it to the other side. That saved us from going all the way down to the lake. Only saves 200ft of drop, 200ft gain, and a small distance. And it’s not the nicest trail... The ascent to Tailgunner was non-eventful. I let Mason make most of the navigation descisions. He picked a pretty good route.

Gunn, Pt5760, Tailgunner

Gunnshy in the clouds, Gunn Peak, and Point 5760 as seen from the final approach to Tailgunner

5:50p. Tailgunner’s register is running out of room and very damp (place screw cap down…. please). Anyone headed that way should consider bringing an upgraded one. It currently is a black PVC outer, maybe 2”, with a screw cap (found threaded cap up) and an inner white PVC capsule, about 1”. The paper barely fits with the pencil inside the inner. Maybe a nalgene with more paper would be better… No Pics here Back to camp at 6:20p. We ate Phad Thai and watched the 4 goats with babies along the south slopes below Wing. Rainier popped into view. We filtered some more water and settled in to watch most of “The Dawn Wall” on Netflix (downloaded, and reccomended). But we were too tired to finish it. Weather was still too poor to stargaze.

Phad Thai

Wing with Merchant just behind

Mason with Baring behind (his favorite mountain so far)

Wing, Infinity Tarn, and Baring

Baring just before sunset

Woke up and ate a quick breakfast. We left camp just after 8:00a, and headed up toward Wing. We spotted a goat relaxing on flat rock way up ahead on our intended path. As we got closer, it was gone. But soon after, we approached a crest and saw 2 goat heads over the rise, so we ducked down and I got the camera out. As soon as we popped up to see them and snap pics, they took off. And we could look over the edge and see them traverse the steep sides of the bowl just south of the summit. There were 8 moms, 4 kids, and what appeared to be a juvenile (probably a millennial who came back…)

Mason in the morning

Goats as we came over a rise

All nine goats

had to include the young goat leaping.

We grabbed the summit and scrambled down into the bowl with all the plane wreckage. @Neek had found the model and serial somewhere in this wreckage in 2017. I couldn’t find it. But it was a PB4Y-2 Privateer. The serial puts this plane as a four engine prop Navy plane that crashed in 1953. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_PB4Y-2_Privateer https://www.baaa-acro.com/crash/crash-consolidated-pb4y-2-privateer-black-peak-10-killed The bowl narrows at the bottom. We’re now 100ft below the top of Wing. The downclimb out of this area looked too sketchy for me without rope and harness. But I knew there was more debris to comb through. So we headed ESE through the notch that the goats had used to escape. There was some debris over there, but not much. As you skirt south below Wing, you find lots of debris that escaped that upper bowl. It is strewn down at least as far down as 5030ft elevation. At that point, the talus was ending, the pieces were more scarce, and the brush was beginning. So a lot harder to find stuff if I continued. The bushes had 66 years to grow over if anything was even down there. I did find engine parts, a few propellers, broken plexiglass, life vest, radio parts, big sheets of body or wing panels, and even three links of a watch band. Lot of other stuff. That’s just the highlights. Link to a plethora of pictures of debris.

Courtesy of neek from nwhikers.net

radio box

stainless still perfect after 66 years

life vest for water landing

prop

prop

Mason had been encouraging me to quit combing through debris, and I had finally given in. So we headed back up. We had looked from camp to plan an exit from below Wing. But of course we couldn’t tell where we were exactly. And the terrain always is different when viewed from 500 yards away. We had fleeting views of camp, but then the clouds rolled in and we could only see 100ft or so. But that’s what a GPS is good for. I used my phone to pick a general bearing, and we chose the route we could see that would help us gain that direction to get back up to the ridge, and then over to camp. It was after 11:30 on Saturday, so we wondered if anyone else was coming up. On the way to camp, we decided it was best to grab Pt5760, not knowing if we’d ever be back here again. Plus we had plenty of time. We picked a route from below 5760 and started in. Of course there were a couple tough moves that we couldn’t see from below. But nothing that stopped us from our goal. Reached the summit of 5760 just past noon. While on top, we saw someone on Gunn and yelled, but we got no response. We also saw no sign of gear along the ridge where most choose to camp. Likely they were day hiking.

camp from 5760

Mason on the way to 5760

strangers on Gunn

Wildflowers on 5760

Back to camp around 12:40p. I started packing while Mason filtered water. We left around 1:20. I twisted my ankle before we really got into the hard descent. But it loosened up pretty quickly. Lots of slipping when down at lower elevations. That stuff is slick and loose. Somewhere near the bottom, i was doing some devil’s club control with my $30 Costco carbon fiber trekking poles. I swang though one of them and didn’t see the sturdy branch behind it. That’s the end of that pole… But at least I got the devil’s club. The pole still worked for trail maintenance the rest of the way. Got down at 3:20. Can't say I won't do it again. The peakbagging potential is high. It's also pretty scenery up there. Better weather might force me up again, but not soon... Total 10+ miles 8000 total gain/loss over the two days (+6500/-3500 the first day) KML link

[RichP]

Excellent.

[Stefan]

Congrats on your new hiking partner!!!

[Schroder]

Great adventure and photos! As a footnote to your last trip report and the questions asked about these crashes, Wing Luke's crash site is at the 5000 ft level on the North side of Wing Pk.

[contour5]

Great stuff! Thanks for posting!

[neek]

Been looking forward to this one. Hope your ankle isn't too bad.

[SultanHiker]

[Nancyann]

So nice to see Mason’s enthusiasm for climbing with you. What a memorable experience for you both!

[Sky Hiker]

Nice trip report thanks for posting. Just as an FYI your not allowed to remove goat, deer, elk, etc. skulls unless you harvested it and have appropriate tags & lisc.

[SultanHiker]

[Schroder]

[Anne Elk]

Some of the best goat photos I've ever seen - the group shot (the darker one) could be a serious calendar contender.