Terrence's trip report from WTA

We are the Mountain Goats, Nathan (16) and Terrence (13), and on Saturday, one of us (Terrence) climbed Del Campo by way of Gothic Basin.

We left the trailhead at Barlow Pass at 8:00, hoping to be able to get our hike in before the weather turned. The Monte Cristo road is very flat for the first mile until you cut off to the new Weeden Creek trail. This stays pretty flat for another mile or so and then you start to gain elevation quickly. You are still in the woods here, but the trail gets steep with a few switchbacks. At about 3 miles you break out of the woods, crossing some creeks and then the trail turns pretty rocky and bouldery, still gaining quite a bit of elevation. The views here in the valley are great, especially Silver Tip Peak.

We got into Gothic Basin at about 10:40 - the weather, which had been low clouds was now starting to clear a little bit. The Basin is beautiful and rocky, with little lakes and trails everywhere. You are surrounded by high ridges and mountains here and the views are great. There were a few people camping, but overall it was pretty quiet. At Foggy Lake, we went around the right side and picked up the climbers trail on the southeast side of Del Campo.

The trail is pretty easy to follow, and then you enter the boulder field. As other trip reports state, head diagonal towards the notch and the obvious gully. Once you get here (don't go all the way up the gully - you end up at cliffs), there are a couple of cairns that mark a good place to start the scramble. Although there are a lot of good ways to go up here.

The final scramble is pretty straight forward. The rock is pretty solid with lots of good hand and footholds. You head up, parallel to the gully, and then take a hard left - there are some cairns here and a few faint trails. At this point, make your way up to the summit, taking care not to go too far left or right. By this time, the sun was shining, and we had good localized views. It was great to have the summit to ourselves, and thanks to the person that bought a new notebook up for the summit log. We got to the summit a bit before 1:00.

Heading down at 1:30, we passed about 8 or 10 people coming up to the summit. We picked our way down to the boulder field and headed out, enjoying some wild blueberries along the way. There were a lot of people coming up and out at this point. This trail continues to be very popular. It warmed up a lot, and the creeks were great to stick our heads in coming out. We got to the car at 4:45, just as the clouds were rolling in and the weather changing.

GPS tracked about 12 miles for the hike - overall Del Campo is not overly difficult, but it is a long day with the terrain being tough for a lot of the hike. We were definitely feeling it coming out - this is a good hike to do this time of the year. Thanks for reading and happy hiking!