Royal Basin

 WE drove up to the Dungeness Trailhead in the Northeast Olympics to hike up to Royal Lake and Royal Basin in the Olympic National Park. This is a 16+ mile round trip hike with an overall elevation gain of 3,200 feet (depending on how much exploring in Royal Basin you do).
The first mile of the trail is along the Dungeness Trail in a lovely forest.
About 1 mile from the trailhead, take the Royal Lake trail on the right and do not cross the bridge over Royal Creek.

 The trail follows along and then above Royal Creek on its way up to Royal Lake

 Soon the trail enters Olympic National Park

 With a cloudy forecast, we were happy to see the peaks near our destination appear ahead along an open slope on the trail.

 a peak across Royal Creek as we traversed an open slope

 We enjoyed all the shades of green along the forest floor.

 There were a few icy patches of trail on the way up to the lake in the morning.

 First look at Royal Lake, we choose the trail on the left to go around Royal Lake towards Royal Basin

 We found a beautiful spot to take a lunch break at the lake

 Wide angle view of Mount Clark reflecting in Royal Lake











some lovely stone steps at the far end of the lake

 View of Royal Lake from the far end, we saw quite a few fish here

 We then took the trail up through Arrowhead Meadow. Waterfall on the left, trail up to Royal Basin on the right.

 There was some snow and ice on this steep section of the trail, some areas are eroding

 Looking back at Arrowhead Meadow

 Mt Mystery in Royal Basin (the tarns are over to the right)

 The Needles

 We took some time exploring the tarns in Royal Basin. This is the largest one, with Mt Deception and the Needles in the background

 We also scrambled up the boulder field to see more tarns

 We found some bright red stonecrop growing among the rocks

 We headed back down towards the first tarn before leaving Royal Basin

 Back at Royal Lake, we took the trail on the other side of the lake back

 We enjoyed our hike back in the late afternoon, returning to the trailhead before dark.

 some of the fungi we saw along the trail today: