Gothic Basin: Rough Road To an Unreal Landscape

Del Campo Above Foggy Lake

Recently, in record breaking July heat, I climbed up to Gothic Basin for the first time in almost a decade with  my friend, Warren.  The last time I hiked up to this rocky planet was in September of 2006.   I had been meaning to get back up there since Foggy Lake, Del Campo, and the surrounding moonscape are amazing, but in the intervening years, other trails hearkened.  Gothic Basin is a short but tough climb. According Craig Romano, it logs in just under five mile with nearly 2900' of joy to ascend.  This would not be a great hike for out of town guests who have never hiked unless you've tired of their company.   Like the trail to nearby Vesper Peak, this one was cut by miners intent on fortune.  Consequently, the path is less than gentle.

Back in '06, I remember I had missed the Ebenezer Lutheran Hiking Club van on the morning of the hike, so I drove there on my own.  Before slides interrupted,  the Monte Cristo Road was open to the trailhead.  When Warren and I hiked, we had to park on the highway.  There's space for maybe 10 cars with more parking across the road at the Barlow Pass trailhead.  By the way, the walk along the road, while easy, adds over a mile each way to your hiking distance.

The first time I hiked the trail I remember thinking it would begin with gentle switchbacks through the forest.  Wrong.  Ken, from my church, had planned the hike, so I never bothered to read the description of it. Sure, it starts along the river, but in a hurry things get steep.  There were parts of the trail where I stopped to laugh at the 9 percent grade that went on for a quarter mile.  It was like the slog up to Camp Muir on Rainier, only in dust.    Along this pitch,  I found the first of our party, daughters of Norway making their way slowly up trail,  happily chatting, oblivious to the agony.  I passed them with the intent of moving towards the front of the group since I had a Husky game to catch that afternoon.  As Warren and I trudged up the slope this summer, I remember thinking, at least we're in the shade.  It was probably almost 30 degrees warmer than the September morning in '06.

Back then I was a mere youth in my mid-40s.  I pushed up the hill because I still suffered from the ravaging effects of over-competitiveness common among men my age.  As I worked my way up the hill, I began to pass a few of guys a little older than me.  I smirked at their trekking poles.  I had used ski pole on snowy volcanoes, but it seemed a little silly at the time to use them on a day hike.  However, I would be converted  after the hike when my knees screamed at me, "You Idiot!"   Fast forward nine years:  Warren is barely in his 30s.  He rejected my offer to lend him a spare set of poles, a decision he would later come to regret.

After leaving the woods, and crossing the creek, the trail gets rougher.  The last time I crossed the stream it was a semi-torrent.  This year, it was a pleasant decorative water feature.  It was right about here in '06 that I caught up with a group of younger folks.  They were hiking with a older man in his 70s, named Bill.   How kind, I thought, for these kids to keep the old guy company on the trail.  Once again, my interpretation of the situation was wrong.  It turned out the old guy was slowing down for them.  I learned this as the trail got rough and even steeper, crossing through a small water falls and climbing rocks and boulders.

Weeden Creek Falls in the Dry Summer of '15

As I work nearly breathlessly up the trail, I listened to Bill talk about climbing the various peaks in the area.  If you could see it, he had climbed it.  One summer he cashed in all of his vacation days and spent over a month on Denali only to encounter weather so dangerous, he and his party needed to shelter in a snow tunnel.  To make matters worse, as the blizzard intensified, two more climbing parties crowded into the shelter they had built.  After the stench of several days, the storm broke, but foggy conditions allowed for only one member of their party to summit. It wasn't Bill.  As a family man, he promised his wife not to take any undo risks.  Later,  I would learn he is a pretty big deal in the world of running, a master champion who routinely wins his age group in runs from 10 K to marathons.  This answered my question, "who is this guy?" as I was trying to keep up with him on the trail.   In fact, Bill was on the cover of Sports Illustrated after the Boston Bombing.  Caught up in Bill's stories, and working to keep up, I didn't realized we had pulled away from the younger hikers.

Bill Absolutely Got Up Again!
And Ran the Boston Marathon this year.

Bill (center) enjoying lunch on the rocks (2006).

Warren and I probably had more focus on the heat of the day than any conversation as the temperature neared 90 degrees even at elevation.  He wore his bandanna like a Bedouin in the desert, and soaked it in water as we crossed streams.  I was only wearing my trusty baseball cap, and as much as I tried to keep sunblock on my ears, it was a near impossibility due to sweat.  Consequently, my ears burned.  On subsequent hikes, I returned to wearing my floppy hiking hat with a brim all the way around.  Comfort before fashion.

One of the bigger tarns probably troutless.

After quite a bit of work across the open slope, the trail hops the ridge onto a rocky, unworldly plateau.   This is the Gothic Basin.  Austere and beautiful.  We moved counter clockwise along the loop trail, crossing a landscaped scraped clean by glaciers and tarns of melt water towards Foggy Lake and Del Campo.  Near one of the bigger tarns, Warren and I found some young fishermen camping.

Del Campo , left of Foggy Pass

Staying to the right of the tarns, we followed cairns across granite to the Foggy Lake at the foot of Foggy Pass.  On that day, it was blue skies as far as the eye could see.  A light breeze blew across the lake.  We ate lunch, and I baptized myself in the cold waters, a full dunk despite my the tolerant latitude of my theology.  Only a few patches of snow remained at the end of lake below the pass, but the temperature was still cold enough.

Cold and Pure Foggy Lake 

After a good rest at the lake, we decided to head out.  Warren was supposed to pick his wife up from work, and to be honest with you, it was too hot for me to consider a scramble up Foggy Pass let alone Del Campo.  Trekking poles proved their worth again on the way down.  Warren wished he had a set. but true to his Germanic heritage, he fashioned an alpenstock out of a stick he found.  This seemed to somewhat mitigate the impact of the slope on his knees, ankle and hip.  I personally think two poles better balance the load, though.

On the slow way down, we worked our way across the granite basin onto the rugged trail.  I was surprised at the number of folks coming up in the heat of the day.  Two dads loaded down with camping gear struggled over a boulder as their daughters gave instructions on navigating a trail-blocking boulders.  One of the dads looked up and asked the question of the weary, "How far?"  We were almost an hour out of the lake by then.

The rough trail isn't any easier descending, but we splashed our faces in the small streams and passed more tattooed hikers than I have ever seen on a trail.  The heat had brought out a graphic indicator of the popularity of the trend.  In a splashing stream, Warren re-soaked his bandanna, and used a filter straw to sip water cooler than the air.  Used to the typical moderate weather of Western Washington, I hadn't thought of the advantage of a filter over bottled water on a short hike.  Ernie, one of my other hiking buddies, who earned his Eagle Scout as a teen hiking in So Cal, swears by bringing both: There's nothing as refreshing as water from a snow-fed stream.  On that hot afternoon, I sucked on a piece of hard candy instead.

I look forward to the reopening of the Monte Cristo Road.  After a hot day on the trail, I have to say that it's discouraging to have another mile to slog along the road after reaching the trailhead.  Fortunately, it was mostly shaded.  We reached Warren's Subaru where he had cold water in a cooler.  Eventually, the anemic air-conditioner began to work, and it was a good thing since we got stuck behind an accident on Granite Falls Highway going home.  Warren was late picking his wife up from work.