Introduction
This past weekend, I was finally able to hike Gothic Basin. Located at the tail end of the Mountain Loop highway, the Gothic Basin hike was originally an old miner's trail. Apparently, switchbacks were not part of the miner's vocabulary, as the hike goes straight up...3300 feet straight up.
Jayson, Amber, and I tackled this hike on a beautiful summer day. The trail was mostly empty, as we only saw about 5 other people on the trail all day. All told, about 8 miles round trip. Finding the lake atop the basin was a bit of a challenge. I prefer to call it "exploring" (never lost). Eventually, Jayson and I realized that the delicatley place cairns we were following was actually art (or a cruel joke) as they led to nowhere - climbing high atop boulders, we were eventually able to find the lake (and our destination).
The hike on this day was relatively bug free - guidebooks say the trip is about 7.6 miles, but don't take into account the mile it takes to hike to the trailhead and back. Plan on 8 hours if you decide to (and you should) tackle Gothic Basin.
