Gunnery Mountain

This was the first hike of the season for three of us. We did it Saturday April 28, 2018. Present company was Sandy, Ryan, Curtis and I. It took about 4.5 hours and we gained around 600m elevation.

The hike has 2 trailheads. We chose the one a bit further down the road (the second trailhead). It starts just on highway 541 just after the second cattle gates. When we started, it was difficult to find the actual trailhead so we spent the morning bushwhacking to the top. It was ok, but a trail would have been nice.

The hike was fairly easy. It was a nice steady incline with no real difficult spots. The views were amazing the entire way up. The ticks were out in full force. We each had to brush a few off before we even got to the top but no one was bitten.

It is a south facing hike so the sun cooked us (which was a welcome change from the cold winter we had). Once at the top, we found the second trail that comes from the other direction. We did the quick ridge walk (and stayed away from the cornices) to the true summit. Because of the ticks, we backtracked to where there was a rocky section to have lunch.

After lunch, we made our way down the ridge all the way to the bottom which spit us out about 100ft from the car. I would not recommend going up this section but down was fine. It was pretty unstable loose scree rock in sections.

In summary:

A great first hike of the season. If you like bushwhacking or know the route then it would be a great hike. There was a little sprinkling of snow in sections but it was pretty dry throughout the hike. No spikes required.