No trip reports from the basin yet?! Let's get this party started for 2025 then.

The lower portion of the trail is in good shape. I counted two blowdowns, both easy enough to get around. Each of the creek/waterfall crossings are fully melted out except for the last one. That one has one decent snowbridge and one extremely sketchy snowbridge that I expect will be gone by the end of the weekend. Alternatively, choose the safer option and walk down a little bit and hop across the creek.

The snow currently starts around 4,000ft and became continuous at 4,300ft. Route finding is required from here as the trail is completely covered and impossible to see. I was following the trail fairly closely but still saw no other tracks so either people have been going up a different way or it has been a while since anyone made it up.

As for gear, I had gaiters with me, poles, and an ice axe (I never use spikes, but if you prefer those for snow travel, they would be useful). The ice axe was handy on the way down as there are slopes that if you start sliding on, it's a long, cliff filled way down.

Up in the basin it's, as expected, snowfields as far as the eye can see. Foggy lake is just barely starting to melt, but it's still solidly frozen. I hung out for a half hour before starting to get chilly and headed back down.

For anyone wanting to bag Del Campo, it looks like the peak is melted out so it should be doable. I thought about it, but this was the first "real" hike of the season for me and my legs were telling me no after kicking in a bootpack for the past hour.

• Time up: 2.5 hours
• Time down: 1.75 hours

bare up till about 3000' at which point the trail became covered in snow and easy to lose

Apparently this report never posted, which is a bummer, but, maybe it can be used as a reference for next year.

Going off of photos and memory, started the long gravel road trail at 10am, there was one other car in the lot at this time, which left me semi hopeful this hike was still possible.

Through a good half of the hike there was absolutely no snow, we were making incredible time, and I was really feeling like the adventure dog and I could hit the basin in a decent time. Well, once the trees kinda cleared, everything changed. The trail became incredibly difficult to navigate, and I started following the footprints of what I assumed to be the hiker from the other car in the lot.

This trail led me to a solid 8 foot wide stream with a few rocks with dry peaks as stepping stones, the stream was a good knee deep in areas. Across the stream was a small ledge that you had to climb up over and was basically 90 degrees.

I assessed the situation, and was ready to call it a day, I figured, eh ill see if I can get Miss Remi to climb the rock wall, which she really couldn't. I had to position myself on the dry rocks and push her up, in hindsight this was just dumb and we should have just turned around. But we had only been hiking for maybe 2 hours, so I was still fresh. 

As we continued on following the boot path, it started to become insanely snow filled, we were rounding a corner, and ran into the hiker id been following.

We chatted for a bit, she said after about 100 yards it's not possible, I told her the dog just loves running in the snow, so if that's what we do and turn around im happy 

And boy was she not kidding. After about 100 yards we found a clearing, and it was absolutely not safe to go any further, it went from knee deep, to easily over the waist in a blink of an eye.

We had some lunch at the clearing then headed down. Getting Miss Remi down from the ledge I discussed earlier was an ENTIRELY different challenge and I ended up having to carry her down and through the stream soaking myself up to my knees.

I had taken my boots off before, and packed extra socks, but hiking down with soaked pants was not totally ideal.

Id say November is an absolute roll of the dice to do this one, if I attempt it again, September will probably be the latest ill attempt. I did it July YEARS ago and that was perfect.

We got down unscathed but semi defeated, spent some time at the river and headed back home.

I hope by now no one has attempted this in December or January, but, yah, just don't lol.

We were at the trailhead Friday at 9am. There were 2 of us and a dalmation.  We made it to Gothic basin around 12:30pm. There were patches of snow along the trail starting around 4200 elevation.  In the basin there was a couple inches tops. We took period breaks on our way to Foggy lake. There were white/blue flagging to show the trail through the basin, leading to Foggy lake.  There was one section that we scooted on our buts down 3 feet.  On our way back this is where we saw a group of 4 w/ a vizla dog. Then we explored down the path through the basin.  By this time it was 2:15pm (time flies), and we hustled back to our car - reached it by 5pm.   

There was plenty of running water on the trail for the dog to drink periodically. One human brought poles and the other didn't.  Neither of us brought microspikes.  water proof shoes were nice.  Lots of clothes layers.  

I imagine the basin is going to get dumped on this week w/ snow....so be prepared for the changing conditions :) 

will load photos soon :) 

The Barlowe Pass parking felt emptier than usual, arrived around 6 and was the second car parked. Facilities were in good condition for such a popular spot!

The rainfall the days prior to this weather window made the creek crossings on the trail up significantly wider and deeper than I had been told to expect by a friend. Even had to pull my boots off and do some calf-deep wading to get across one creek at about 2.3 miles in. Luckily, these were a bit shallower on the way down. That being said, I'd be careful about doing this hike with the possibility of rain moving in during the shoulder season. These mountains love to shed water!

The trail up to the Basin is well defined and challenging. If one chooses to scramble past Foggy Lake the trail becomes less defined to non-existent, though plenty of cairns mark helpful suggestions of where to head to the ridge. I read and watched trip reports from various sources that advised taking the tops of the large slabs to approach the top. I attempted these slabs 3 times, but opted each time to return down to the scree field and make my way up the seams between the large slabs and the scree to the final Gothic Peak haystack. Each time I evaluated these wet, sloped slabs the loose scree seemed like the safer choice. The final scramble was snow-free, though one steep, loose section had me choose a slightly more exposed route with better grip.

Overall distance with Gothic Peak was 13.1 miles. Summited at 11:38 (5.5 hours) and got back to the parking lot at 4:20 (10 hours, 5 minutes).