Climb of Mt. Clark via Royal Basin from September 1-3 2025
PERMITS for the Upper Royal Basin were obtained by calling the Ranger Station the day before our trip (the upper basin is not reservable online).
ROAD was rough in spots, with sections of potholes that I gingerly made it through with the little Nissan Versa Note, and I did see one or two other sedans in the lot. I think the part I liked least was getting through the last steep climb on the way back out (closer to the start of the forest road).
There was an outhouse at the trailhead.
TRAIL to Royal Basin - like previous reports state, it's in pretty good shape with ample water sources. Lots of thimbleberries!
We took the bootpath near the ranger station to check out Royal Falls on the way. There is a log jam that you can use to cross the little creek on the way.
We spent a chill afternoon setting up camp in the Upper Basin and went for a little dip in Imperial Tarn.
MT CLARK: The next morning, we left Imperial Tarn and headed W and then NW-ish up towards Surprise Basin. We initially worked our way up and over two small ridges. Some of it was steep hardpack which was sort of managable on the way up. On the way down between 6,200' and 6,000' we trended more to skiers' right to take more solid rock as the scrambling was preferable to hardpack and scree.
Past there, the rock-hopping commenced. So. Many. Rocks! We headed for the obvious saddle between Clark and Johnson, hopping and hopping and hopping, dropping into a basin with a glacial tarn and then climbing back up.
Crossing the remnant glacier was not difficult, and there was enough debris on the ice that we were able to make it across without any traction devices. There was good running water to be found on the remnant glacier.
There was lots of loose rock as we headed up to the saddle. From there, we picked up a ledge system that we followed around the mountain, following the beta from Fletcher's trip report on NWHikers. I think the most helpful part was knowing we had to downclimb a class 3 crack when you round a corner and it looks like you cliff out (but there's a cairn at the top of the crack).
We made it up the final scramble to only slightly-hazy views of the Olympics, signed the summit register, and hung out for a bit before starting our way down.
For the most part, we stuck to more solid class 3 rock when possible instead of dealing with chossy/sandy class 2 bootpaths. Rockfall on this route was definitely a consideration.
Back below the saddle, we considered going for Johnson as well but we ultimately decided to bail on it as I was running out of water and we wanted to be back at camp early enough for another dip before we lost the sun (the upper basin sadly was in shade by around 5.30 pm this time of year).
Our return to camp basically retraced our steps although we did try to find a better way down the last steep section.
We had a refreshing dip in a different small tarn that afternoon, enjoyed a beautiful sunrise over Imperial Tarn the next morning, and had an uneventful hike out. I'll return for Deception and Johnson someday but preferably when there's more snow coverage on the approach to cut some time off - those rocks were tedious!
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