By Alex Day, Marketing/Communications & Database Director
Interested in venturing into the backcountry with a group of friends? A group trip can be a true bonding experience – there are so many small shared and unexpected moments that will stay with each participant forever. It just takes a bit more planning, and especially advance planning because group sites are limited and especially in popular areas with a short season, tend to be booked early in the reservation window.
Last winter, Marjorie Walter, current Board Chair for Washington’s National Park Fund, and Laurie Ward, Chief Executive Officer, came up with the idea of organizing a trip to Royal Basin in Olympic National Park for WNPF staff and board members. Marjorie shared her experience and her tips on planning your own group backpacking adventure:
“Like many backcountry areas in the national parks, this spectacular destination is very popular, but also fragile, so the park carefully controls the number of campers in the area at any given time. The altitude at Royal Lake itself is 5,100 feet, and the Basin is 600 feet higher, so the snow-free season is fairly short – and of course at the time when you have to reserve a site, it’s impossible to tell for sure how early the avalanche slopes will melt out. So, we made an educated guess and chose a three-day window in mid-July when the moon would be full. Because you have to commit so early, you may not be able to get firm commitments from all your participants at the time of booking.
While it isn’t necessary to know for sure exactly who will be in the group or the exact number, you have to be certain that you will meet the minimum number required for a group site. You will have to add names of participants in the reservation form, but if you don’t have your group completely firmed up at the time of booking, you can just put in a placeholder name. We booked the permit for the maximum number (twelve) but ended up with nine staff and board members by the time we hit the trail.
Once you have your permit reserved, the logistical planning can begin! For our group, we set up a shared Google doc where we could exchange info on training ideas and equipment that we could share – for example, bear cannisters are required at Royal Basin, but for two nights no one needed their own cannister. A few people also shared stoves and water filtration equipment, and some food. While we all carried our own small first-aid kits, we had just a couple of larger kits for the group to share. We also used the Google doc to plan car-pooling. It’s better for the environment, but also some trailheads have limited parking so car-pooling is always a good idea.
Members of our group were coming from different locations around the area, so we ended up in three cars and set a ball-park trailhead arrival time. We didn’t want anyone to have to wait around at the trailhead, so the plan was for each subgroup to head out on their own, and we would meet up either along the trail or at the campsite. As it turned out, we all arrived within a half hour of each other, so we weren’t spaced too far apart on the trail. The faster hikers quickly took the lead, but we made sure no one was left behind. We had two Garmin inReach devices in the group, one with the slowest hiker and one with the fastest, but we failed to exchange contact info before setting out – that is definitely something to do for future group hikes, just for safety.
We gathered at the group site to rest and refuel, and then once everyone had arrived, we figured out the puzzle of how to fit all our tents. It’s important to note that your group site may be okay for up to twelve campers, but it’s unlikely to be able to accommodate twelve tents. We ended up with nine hikers and eight tents, and it was a tight fit. There were also a number of dead standing trees and some spots that were boggy in the afternoon from the rapid snow melt at higher elevations, which reduced our options. But we managed to fit everyone and still have a central area for gathering over meals and for socializing.
The next day, several of our group stayed back to explore the lake and relax in the sunshine, while the rest of us hiked up to Royal Basin itself to explore the meadows, tarns and, for a couple of intrepid adventures, do some scrambling! Though we had participants with different interests, experience levels, and fitness, we all really enjoyed our time together, and that was due in large part to putting together the right group of people — for us that meant people who could be independent but also supportive of each other — this is probably the most important tip for a group trip.
Our Royal Basin trip was a definitely highlight of 2022, and we’re already looking into a group trip for this coming summer!”
To plan your own group trip, start here. While this page is specific to Olympic, the basic principles apply for all three national parks. And be sure to read the NPS’s dedicated resources for the area of the park you’re visiting, so you know what specific conditions to expect and plan for. Case in point: Olympic’s page on Royal Basin advised us that we needed to boil, filter, or chemically treat water from Royal Creek and Royal Lake before drinking it to avoid Giardia exposure. You wouldn’t want to learn that the hard way!
Interested in securing backcountry permits in the parks? Check out our other Backcountry Beginner blogs for Mount Rainier, North Cascades, or Olympic National Parks!
Cover photo: Two hikers about to enter the Olympic National Park boundary by Kacee Saturay