Royal Basin via Royal Lake — Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024

I was happy to score last minute permits for the Royal Lake/Royal Basin area for this bucket-list hike with friends Owen, Catherine, and Andreas!

Only Royal Creek was available for our night one, which worked out great as we got a late start thursday afternoon and enjoyed splitting the hike up into two fairly easy days. It was peaceful camping along the babbling creek. We did the hike out 4 days later all in one day.

We spent nights 2 & 3 at Royal Lake, with a day hike up to Royal Basin in between. We had two hammocks and one tent, and were happy to find an established site that could accommodate all three (most sites were smaller and several would probably not work for hammocks.)  There were no permits available for the basin, but we were quite happy with the beauty at Royal Lake, and it’s a very enjoyable base camp for enjoying Royal Basin. It was also nice not to have to carry heavy packs back down the at-times steep and very slippery slope on the way down from Royal Basin.  

We saw lots of wildflowers! And multiple species of edible berries were ripe for grazing along the way. 

We saw lots of deer, a weasel, birds, brook trout, and some mice. We didn’t see any marmot, but a marmot research party reported seeing lots of them up in Royal Basin during the morning and evening hours.

The trail is in good condition, and aside from a few steeper sections, is more or less a gradual climb the whole way.  The road is 11miles of gravel and has plenty of potholes.  Probably most cars could handle it, but lower clearance cars should plan for lots of time to go slowly and pick your way around the potholes. There seems to be plenty of parking near this trailhead, and there is also dispersed camping near the trailhead (the trailhead is not in the national park.)

Royal Basin is a memorable place and I’m glad to have finally made it.