Royal Basin

A couple of Februaries ago I was doing my annual discount wall calendar shopping at Swain's and ended up with a nice little ditty picturing various scenes from the Olympic Peninsula for about $4. When it came time to flip to March, the featured scene was from Royal Basin. I thought, "I have got to get up there and check that out." And thus, a Life List item was born.



So, last week, with precious little time on this Peninsula remaining, I gathered my gear and convinced a friend to make the trek from Seattle for the overnighter. At 11pm on Thursday I was still locating all of my gear, but by 7:45 the next morning we were underway.

With the cold spring and late onset of summer, rumor had it that the snow had only been melted from the Upper Basin for a few weeks. The flowers just seemed to be getting their game on too. We wound through lots of forest, noting several plants from the "Oddballs" section of the Northwest Plants book. Severe winter storms in December 2007 created some amazing slides and debris fields along the trail, where a few rogue plants were trying to lay down roots in the disturbed sediment. The walk was nice and gradual for the first 5-6 miles, with the real huffing and puffing occurring in the last stretch--luckily this also happened to be the most visually rewarding!

We made it to Royal Lake and had our pick of campsites. While the bogs around the lake were full of flowers of all colors, the blueberries were sadly weeks from being ripe...bummer. As we set up camp, some low clouds settled into the basin and we opted to lay low and rest our aching muscles instead of heading to the Upper Basin.


The next morning dawned with bright blue sky, and some REALLY cold air!
After packing up camp, we headed uphill to Upper Royal Basin. This is where the real rewards began. The views were stunning, once we slogged up a really steep, but short, section of trail that reminded us what a great idea it was to leave our full packs in the campsite. With each step the views of the basin kept getting better--this was some serious payoff!

The surrounding peaks were stunning with their snow-splashed flanks and dark peaks kissing the bright blue sky. The view back down the valley was of a beautiful alpine meadow complete with many meandering and wandering creeks carrying ice cold water down to Royal Creek.