Way more than I bargained for, but wow!

10/31/2024 Gothic Basin

Just a few days ago I was lamenting the two faces of fall hiking, and how the latter half of fall is when the rain sets in and trails turn inaccessible. I hinted at how you get those occasional nice days late fall days when the early snow makes for some spectacular hiking, and yesterday was one of those days, but with a twist.

Just the night before I had plans to hike Mount Pilchuck with a couple of my retired friends, but those feel through last minute. Given no constraints for the day, I changed my plans to the more challenging Gothic Basin. This is one of my favorite hikes, but I have only done it in the summer, and I imagined what it would be like in the snow. I knew that there were only a few weeks left before this hike would be under too much snow for my comfort level. Based on the most recent trip from three days before, I expected some early snow, but I was in for quite a surprise.

The forecast for Halloween Day was for another finicky fall day, with rain in the Puget Sound area. Even the nearest town in my weather app to my destination, Granite Falls, was forecasting rain all day. However, I found a site that gives weather forecasts at the top of mountains, and it showed a window of mostly clear skies for late morning. This is all I needed to try my luck.

There were two other cars in the parking lot, which remained the case for the entire day. I started the day with some fog and cloud cover, but there were signs of hope for it burning off, right on schedule with the forecast.

I passed the first group of hikers early on, and then caught up to a solo hiker around the halfway point right where the snow started to form. As we chatted a bit , we concluded that we should stick together in the increasingly heavy snow, for safety sake. A second set of eyes also helps with route finding.

We knew we were in for a special day when the views of the nearby snow-covered peaks presented themselves, at the same time the sun came out.

We quickly realized that there had been a significant amount of snow in the last day or so, much more than recent reports indicated. By the time we entered the basin, we were in about two feet of snow, of which at least a foot was fresh. This meant that we were blazing the trail, which required a fair amount of route finding and trial and error.

I had told myself before starting the day that if I could just make it to the basin, I would be satisfied, knowing that the push to to Foggy Lake would be tricky and risky by myself. Having a hiking partner gave both of us the confidence to finish the journey to the lake. We both agreed that it would not have been wise to do this last part solo, so we appreciated the company of one another.

Hiking steep inclines on the order of 20 to 30% is hard, and that is what much of this trail is. What is also hard is punching through soft, deep snow, even when the ground is flat. Every step into the snow took us up to our knees and many time higher (a.k.a. post-holing). What is even harder is combining the two by doing both a steep incline and deep snow. The hardest stretch right before the lake was about a 40% incline and two feet of snow.

My legs were like jelly when stopped for a lunch break at Foggy Lake, with the backdrop of Del Campo Peak. Our stop was shorten by the cold temperatures and a slight wind that was enough to turn us around.

It is hard to put into words how absolutely beautiful the basin and surrounding mountains are. We both agreed that it felt like we were in another world, and pictures would not do it justice. I am so thankful to live in such a beautiful place, and I can get to such places in just over an hour's drive. I also very much enjoyed the company of a fellow hiker who I hope to hike with again in the future.