24 miles of hiking • 5000' elevation gain • 1 night
My friend Kevin and I kicked off 2015 training by going up and sleeping on top of Tanner Butte. It's absurd that, in the middle of February, we didn't even see a patch of snow the entire hike. We started from Eagle Creek and did the creek crossing to get up to the backside of Tanner Butte. I'm not sure I'd really recommend that crossing right now; the water is super high from the ongoing melt, and it didn't feel the safest. That said, we took the log crossing a couple hundred yards downstream from the official crossing and it was fine.
We just missed the sunset getting to the top, so we made camp quickly, found our down, and tucked into the rye whiskey we carried to the top. The new moon is in a few days so the sky was dark enough to make out the milky way quite clearly. Sunrise, as you can see in the photos, was absolutely stunning. After basking in the ridiculously beautiful sunrise, we broke camp and hiked down to Dublin Lake to restock our water, make coffee, and have breakfast in the sun before heading back to the car.
It's pretty surprising to me that there isn't a better campsite up on Tanner Butte—there's plenty of space and good locations for it. I wonder if it's just because of the lack of water that folks choose not to sleep up there?
Comments
Kyle Meyer
February 17, 2015
If we couldn't cross, we were going to head back and up to Wahtum and do the Benson loop.
JM
February 16, 2015
Wow, a real gamble w/ that crossing! What to do if you can't get across?