Royal Basin via Royal Lake — Saturday, Jul. 9, 2016

Olympic Peninsula > Hood Canal

This past weekend, my friends and I went backpacking in Olympic National Park to Royal Lake and Royal Basin. Because the Olympic Peninsula is such a trek from Seattle, we car-camped on Friday night at Dungeness Spit - deets from our car-camping experience can be found here. Saturday morning, we drove to Port Angeles to get our camping permit at the Olympic National Park Wilderness Information Center. Because Royal Basin is in the Olympic national Park, you need to get a back-country permit in order to camp there, in addition to making sure that you have a campsite since there are a limited number. We did not use the online reservation system, and were still able to secure a campsite for Saturday night. At the Wilderness Information Center, you can also rent bear canisters for your food, which is highly recommended as there is a significantly larger population of bears in Olympic National park than in the Cascades. At the information center, they also told us that mountain goats can be a problem in the park (a man was killed by a mountain goat in the park a couple years ago), and if they were nosing around our campsite a little too persistently or being aggressive, we were free to throw rocks at them and do whatever was necessary to scare them away. After getting our permits and looking at the mad swag for sale (some pretty dope baseball hats were purchased), we drove to the trailhead. The road to the trailhead is gravel for the most part, and there are quite a few potholes. We were driving our trusty purple Honda Civic (AKA "The Beluga Whale", and didn't have any issues, but I would definitely recommend a high-clearance car or extreme caution with a low clearance car. There is a toilet at the trailhead (yassss), and we set about preparing for departure. In addition to our bear canister, we also attached bear bells to our packs and brought bear spray, just in case. The trail to Royal Lake is very well maintained, and makes for easy stepping with an overnight pack. While the trail gains roughly 2,000 feet during the ascent to Royal Lake, it really doesn't feel like that much since it's spread over the course of 7.2 miles. We knew that we were going uphill and could definitely feel it (butts and calves, ouch!), it wasn't nearly as difficult as we expected it to be. We stopped a few times for lunch, snacks, and rain gear, but we never felt the need to stop to catch our breath. We were super surprised when we got to the lake, as it had only taken us 3 hours and 15 minutes with 35 pound packs. The lake is small, but the water is very clear and a gorgeous shade of emerald green. The trail splits and heads both ways around the lake; we took the right fork. There are many campsites around the lake, and even a toilet, although it's a decent walk. We chose one on the right side up on a hill that overlooked the lake. While we knew that there were other campsites nearby, we couldn't see or hear anyone else (although they probably heard us... sorry for being loud). After setting up our tent and making sure that everything was out of the rain, we headed up the trail to Royal Basin with our day packs. On the way, we passed the turn-off to the season ranger post and the toilets, both of which are located under a huuuge rock. The rock would have been fun to climb if it wasn't such a rainy day. We also saw a marmot and a couple of deer before we left the lake. The climb up to the basin is anything but boring; we came upon a beautiful green meadow, a sleet-gray stream, and an impressive waterfall before climbing up a talus slope to reach our destination. We were lucky enough not to come upon any bears in the meadow, but did spot a herd of deer up on the slope. When you crest the hill and arrive in the basin, the trail becomes mostly covered in snow, but that's alright because there are lots of foot-trails from previous hikers. The tops of the mountains were shrouded in clouds, but the landscape was still insanely beautiful; we like we'd walked into a Lord of the Rings set. We continued around to the right to the Royal tarns, and again, we were stunned by the beauty of Royal Basin. The first tarn was a beautiful, deep turquoise, and the second one, which we saw from on top of a large rock, was a silty robin's egg blue. We gawked for a solid 5 minutes and then proceeded to take a lot of pictures of the fabulous view. I didn't want to leave, but one of our group members was really cold so we headed back down to our campsite. Seriously, if you camp at Royal Lake, you HAVE to make the trip up to Royal Basin, because it definitely makes the trip. After a good night of camping, we headed back down to the car. The way down felt a LOT steeper than it had on the up, but that was ok because we were going downhill. Surprisingly, the downhill route also seemed a lot longer than it had coming up. We came upon a couple stretches of stream that we hadn't noticed on the way up, and stopped to admire them while taking our water breaks. Once we got back to the car, we changed into some fresh clothes and headed back to civilization. Unfortunately for us, the Hood Canal Bridge was closed due to mechanical malfunctions, so we were unable to stop at CB's Nuts where we planned to get our post-hike snack, and instead had to drive an additional 4 hours down and around Hood Canal. Along here, there are a bunch of really cute-looking ice creameries and snack shops especially in Hoodsport, so I would recommend stopping at one of these if you decide to take the ~scenic route~ back to Seattle. This was an amazing weekend trip to do, and so much fun! Remember to bring proper bear protection, and to make sure that all your camping permits and passes are in order. Also, make sure you hike all the way up to Royal Basin, as it makes the hike soooo worth it. Thanks for reading, and happy hiking! If you're interested, check out my blog at www.mountainridgereviews.com for trail reviews, or on Instagram @mountainridgereviews. Thanks!