Hiked to Gothic Basin on Friday. As always a stunner. Only a little snow left in the basin. Trail in great shape. They put so some stairs into the larger rocks on the way up. Very helpful. Also, there are flags on the way to Foggy lake. This still had some fun icebergs. The trail was not too busy. We left the th late and somehow avoided the mosquitoes.

Arrived around 1630 at the trailhead for a quick solo overnight. Parking was still packed when I arrived. Heading up I passed 15-20 day hikers heading out. Trail is in great shape. There are 3 down trees on the trail, all are easy to pass. There is a snow pack at the mouth of the basin but there is a trail just to the right of it, no need to step in the snow unless you wanted to.
At the lakes I found good camping. Tons of mosquitoes due to the snow melt. Walking around I did find a couple areas folks have improperly dug cat holes and left TP scraps…. To avoid this there is an awesome pit toilet at the entrance to the basin. While there is no sign currently, it is marked on Gaia GPS very accurately! Hard left when topping out the pass to the basin, head up to the flat, then another hard left up the rocks. Toilet is located about 75’ ahead! Awesome view while you poop!

On the Mountain Loop highway, there is some bridge painting work going on, I believe it is 18ish miles from Granite Falls along the highway, and the road is reduced to 1 lane, so you might hit a slight delay here.

When I got to the trailhead, the toilet at the parking lot had not toilet paper. However, when I returned after the hike, it was fully stocked.

You have to walk down a gravel road past the gate to the actual trailhead, but it poses no issues.

The early part of the actual trail is fairly flat for a good while and is a bit over grown in places. If plants brushing up against your legs bother you (especially if they are dewy in the morning), you might want to wear long pants or at least convertible pants that you can transition to shorts later.

After you do the first creek crossing, the climbing starts and doesn't not really let up until you get to the top.

In this forest climb section, there is one tricky blow down that you have to navigate around and is made tricker by having many of its limbs getting in your way, but it is doable.

There were a few other blow downs along the way past this, but nothing particularly troublesome.

The creeks along the way are all flowing well, so there is opportunity to filter and fill up water if you want to minimize how much you're carrying. You'll of course also have an opportunity to fill up at the lakes.

I won't comment much about the climb because I think it's understood that it is hard. I did find that this trail was great at giving me false hope of getting to the end only to be presented with another climb, so try to keep your spirits up.

You do have to get around a snow field to get over the crest to the first lake. Folks seems to have cut a trail to the right along a ledge above the snow field, or you can try to make your way along the edge it, but the vegetation here hasn't been damaged much yet, so you risk damaging it, if that is a concern.

The first lake is snow free and has great views.

The hike to the next lake has more scrambling over the granite and more snow fields that made route finding a bit more tricky. There are small flags along the way to guide you along the trail, but I found these hard to spot sometimes. It was worse on the way down, and often just resorted to but scooting down.

The second lake still has ice, so that quashed my aspirations to take a dip in it when I got to the top, but maybe you're braver than me.

The hike down was similarly tough, having to watch footing as you descend those many steep sections. The long flat section through the forest and then on the gravel road were also a bit tiring.

This was a fun & challenging hike to do and had great views along the way, and I'm always a fan of hikes to alpine lakes.

Got to the parking lot at 7:45 am on a Tuesday and there were only two other cars. The bathroom at the at the TH is clean but there is no toilet paper. There are a few blow downs across the trail but they were easy to navigate around. Once you break out of the tree line, the views and multiple waterfall crossings are INCREDIBLE. Bring your sunscreen because it is also 100% exposure. Going from Gothic Basin to Foggy Lake was a little tricky staying on trail. There are little white and blue flags to follow but some are hard to spot with the snow still melting. There are still a few snow crossings but we were able to cross them with only our hiking boots. Foggy Lake still has a little bit of snow/ice but it seems to melting very fast. Found an incredible camp site with 360 views - this might be the prettiest place I’ve slept while backpacking. Only 2 other couples joined us overnight in the area. The mosquitoes were pretty intense until the wind picked up - bug spray was helpful!
Going into this trip, we expected rain on our hike out the day so we hustled out of camp at 7:40 am. The rocks were a little slick coming down in the rain but manageable. All together, I loved hike and will be back!

Arrived at the trailhead at 7AM and had no issue parking. 

There were a few down trees that were not difficult to pass.