Del Campo Peak — Monday, Aug. 24, 2020

Started hiking at 7:30 AM, with the intention of exploring Gothic Basin and attempting to summit Del Campo and getting home in time for dinner. Parked on the side of the road, surprised to see 20+ cars on a Monday morning. Trail starts out deceptively easy on a dirt road and then branches right, with clear signage to Gothic Basin. The trail is still easy for the next 1-2 miles, and they starts to climb very steeply, however the trail is very smooth and without obstacles. Once it levels out, the trail starts to show more obstacles but nothing difficult to manage. Took us 2.5 hours to reach the basin. It's breathtaking when the basin suddenly unfolds beneath you and it's easy to just want to wander around, which we did for a little, but if you head right as soon as you enter the basin, you will see cairns leading you to Foggy Lake, which was almost empty compared to the very full basin and has superior views. At the lake, Del Campo is right/center and Gothic Peak is to the left. Despite appearing imposing, the approach to Del Campo isn't bad as long as you can find the cairns, and if you miss them, just keep your eye on the large talus field that currently has a snowfield to the left of it. Once you reach the talus field with the large rocks and you aren't comfortable going further, I would call it a day since the views are nothing short of amazing. If you head upwards, the talus becomes very loose and hard to climb. We weren't comfortable going left as a previous climber recommended as we were without helmets and wanted to stay away from the rock wall, so we went right to the notch between the 2 summits (1.5 hours from Foggy Lake). The actual summit was a short scramble up but we didn't do it because a fall would be fatal and were satisfied with almost making it to the top. Plus clouds were rolling in obscuring the north and west views. Took almost 2 hours to reach the entrance to the basin and another 2 hours to reach the parking lot. Lots of thimbleberries and blueberries along the way.