Gothic Basin — Saturday, Jun. 18, 2005

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

A great day out! Warm up on the Monte Criste road for a mile or so then a gentle jaunt through the forest before crossing a fast flowing creek and the fun begins. The trail goes steeply up through some old forest for about a mile before emerging into the sun and some tremendous views. The trail is less steep for a little under a mile and offers lots of interest with views, stream crossings, deep gullys etc. Enjoy this portion and gather your strength for the push to the top. The trail is rough, rocky, extremely steep requires some light scrambling but if you've made it this far you'll have no problem. The way is never in doubt. The basin was cool, but we had the sun to warm us. The lower lake is partially melted. We scrambled up to foggy lake which was half on snow, half on rock. Foggy lake was mostly ice! Foggy pass looked like a good snow scramble but we didn't attempt it. Coming down was tough! Wow, all that scrambling up was doubly tough on the way down. But well worth it. This trail was quiet. On a beautiful Sunday where the Dickerman parking lot looked packed and there were lots of cars at the Monte Cristo trail head, we encoutered four other groups in 6+ hours of hiking. Highly recommended.