0.8 miles on the closed road towards the ghost town of Monte Cristo.
An obvious side trail goes up to the right, signed for Gothic Basin.
The first mile or so is nice soft forest trail, even with a few boardwalks.
Then it gets a little rough. A few creek crossing. None too bad.
3.4 miles (2700') after the junction, is the first lake of Gothic Basin. 11am, already a lot of people and a lot of tents. Boys were sunny themselves like marmots.
Continue up over rocks, Foggy Lake is a short distance away. Still has snow on it. Very pretty.
We stayed here for awhile to wait for the rest of the group. Ate lunch.
I draw here in red our rough route. It's fairly easy to go to both peaks from Foggy Lake.
The traverse, at least what M and I did, involves veggie belay, a short but super steep and bushy section.
We had to crawl over tree limbs, or standing on them in order to pass.
Lost all the others behinds us.
We headed to Gothic Peak first.
There's a nice track up the ridge. We saw a group coming down.
A few dry campsites there too (none taken).
Once gain the ridge, walk towards Gothic, and then the scramble starts.
Everyone in my group made to the top. Misa ahead of all.
The view at the summit is fabulous.
We spent almost 1 hour here.
I took these 2 photo, while waiting in the shade for my group to come down.
11 people nicely illustrate the route up/down.
We came down the same way.
Half way down, half of us decided to traverse towards Del Campo.
Half returned to the lake for some relaxation.
We all made to the other side of snowy saddle.
After some rock pile, we were on some serious steep scramble.
Everyone bailed, except Misa, who lead the charge and me following. She's been here before.
Once join the regular climbing route, it was easy.
The top 100' or so scramble has maybe 2 big rocks that need hands to pull/push.
The summit view is even better (higher than Gothic Peak).
But we didn't linger.
Took the regular track down. It was easily identifieable once you are down from the scramble.
I wasn't paying too much attention. In the haste, fell over some sharp rock.
I only felt something dripping before I knew that I was bleeding.
Smashed snow on to my pant leg. It got rather red/pink.
At some point, we heard a cheer from the direction of the lake. My group was waiting.
By the time we made back to the lake, they were gone, which is good.
Misa and I caught up with them halfway out, and found Maysam in a sickly state.
Some cold water revived him. We all made to the TH.
D gave me some antiseptic wipe.
The bleeding didn't stop for 3 days. The wound was small, but deep.
This group always go to dinner after the hike. I got home very late (almost midnight). Will be resting tomorrow.
