We stayed overnight at Royal Lake, then slackpacked up to Royal Basin after we set up camp. It kicked my butt a little, and was quite gloomy and moody (though it never actually rained), but it was lovely!
We started on Friday and hiked out on Saturday.
THE ROAD / PARKING
That is a ROUGH road. I drove to the trailhead in a Toyota Tacoma and I'm really glad I had such a high-clearance vehicle. I saw some sedans at the trailhead and I gotta say: I'm impressed. It's the last several miles once you turn off the paved Palo Alto Road where it gets rough.
Some of those potholes are the deepest potholes I've seen in recent memory, and many sections of potholes are entirely unavoidable. I'd definitely recommend a high-clearance vehicle if you've got access to one.
When I got to the first parking area around 9, there were only a few cars there. The trailhead has a privy.
TO ROYAL LAKE
The trail was in great shape all the way to the lake. Some sections were real steep, but overall, it wasn't too bad of a hike.
A couple of other trip reports have mentioned this, but there are 3 log bridges that were not my favorite. There are no hand rails and are basically just a log raised over the water. There's nothing really stopping you from falling in. I can imagine the logs getting slippery when wet.
We made it to the lake with plenty of time to head to Royal Basin.
ROYAL LAKE TO ROYAL BASIN
Talk about a steep trail! If you generally don't carry poles, I would HIGHLY recommend them for the section between Royal Lake and Royal Basin. There's some pretty loose gravel in very steep places, and I was doing some shuffling. We were only carrying day packs; I imagine it's even more of a balancing act with a full pack on.
The basin is very beautiful! We sat around for a while looking at the reflections in the water and the mist moving in. We were the only ones there on a Friday evening.
ROYAL LAKE CAMP
There are SO many campsites at Royal Lake! We actually camped at the first campsite you come across at Royal Lake, which is right on the lake (though it's higher up, so you can't access the lake itself). It's very close to an outlet of the lake you walk over on the trail shortly after, which is nice.
If you keep going, especially past the lake itself, there are a ton more campsites. If you get to the lake and you don't see any campsites, just keep going past the lake. You'll find plenty of options.
PRIVY
I found the backcountry privy a bit difficult to locate and the map at the lake hard to read... If you're somewhat navigationally-challenged like myself, the privy is on a loop trail off the main trail. Caltopo and Gaia both show this trail; I assume other topographic maps do too. If you're camping at the lake, it's much faster to go around the south shore of the lake to reach the loop, rather than taking the other side of the loop.
The compost toilets were in fine shape, though they are LITERALLY right off the trail, and the fences they built for "privacy" almost feel performative 😂 Just know that someone will definitely know the toilet is being used if they're on the trail! There are also 2 right next to each other. (One of my hiking party called them a "his and hers" set, which I found very funny.)
WATER
We saw plenty of water sources on our way to the lake. I wouldn't worry too much about water at this time.
As for the lake, as others have mentioned, there is some algae growing in the lake, which makes it less palatable. There are places along the lakeshore that are less algal, so I'd collect there, or from the outlet mentioned above in the camp section.
MISC.
I'd never been to Royal Lake/Basin before! They're both beautiful, though I would say that Royal Basin is more "otherworldly" as it's in more of a rocky environment. I don't know that I would have wanted to carry my pack all of the way up there, so camping at Royal Lake and slackpacking to Royal Basin was a great middle ground!
Length
Elevation Gain
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