[JeremyS]

Hello, I know I don't post often enough but I did manage to fit in Royal Basin since a few of my friends decidedly did not go at the last moment. I had no idea what to expect from this hike, I only vaguely read about it but I was in for an amazing hike through old growth forests at the end an amazing view of The Needles. Once you get to Royal Lake and you are presented with this:

You get an idea of just how amazing this can be, but lets start at the beginning where you begin in old growth forest as you hike along the Dungeness River and then following Royal Creek. Here is just a small sampling of the trail:

How about views of the forest as I head up to Royal Basin? Well it was pretty spectacular too:

As I moved forward there were certain points there was even the occasional breakout from the forest where you just get a peak of whats around you as seen here:

Surprisingly, there was some fall coloring showing throughout the trail once you get up close to the high meadow campground:

After the high meadow campground I headed to Royal lake where this is my first picture of it:

Thankfully there are no bugs up there so it was a perfect time of the year as the snow is just starting to showing up and combined with the fall coloring around the lake its spectacular and is one of my favorite day hikes I have done this year. I attempted to get up to the upper basin but I was running out of time but here is a few pictures from that:

At that point I decided to head back down as I was running out of time but here are a few random shots:

I would recommend anyone to go this place as a day hike or even as an overnight. I wish I had either gotten there earlier or just overnighted it so that I could explore the upper basin more rather than getting mostly there and having to turn around. Here is the rest of the pictures for the hike As a bonus here is my previous two weeks of hikes, Alpine Lookout and Bare Mountain

[Phil]

Beautiful shots, nice job capturing all aspects of that area. As you noted the Royal Creek trail is very special.

[gratenate]

I've heard the Royal Basin is quite beautiful and your pictures support that. What time of year did you visit?

[JeremyS]

I went around mid-October and it was astounding how nice it was and the fall colors were not showing completely through but it was quite beautiful it was.