Alpine Scramble - Del Campo Peak

Easy walk on the old Monte Cristo road for the first mile, and then you veer onto the trail. The first portion of the trail to the elevation of 3800' is quite well graded with some sections rock filled, a slow and gradule climb to this height. From here on out the trail follows the old miners route and is in horrible condition for the most part, being more of a low level scramble up a dry stream bed filled with large rocks, requiring large steps. The three main stream crossings required deviating from the trail, as the snow bridges were unsafe to cross on this date. We actually traveled upstream under the snow bridge on one of them, Left the trailhead at 8 a,m, and reached the entrance to Gothic Basin at 11:45, with regrouping at each stream/snowbridge crossing and also about every hour for a 10 minute break. After this regrouping and refueling we headed up basin on snow and rock, the final push towards the summit involved moderate angled snowfields and talus to the gully approach for our final assualt. The summit block requires sure footing and secure handholds for quite a few hundred feet, with us summiting at 2:45 p.m. After half an hour on the summit a slow and careful downclimb, had us leaving the basin at 6:20, after many photo ops and a water filter refill with many snacks in  the upper basin. Last stream/snowbridge crossing regroup/rest stop at 7:45, and back to the dirt road at 9:15 and to the cars at 9:37. I myself the slowest of the group, otherwise these young hotshots would have cut quite a bit of time off this trip. Fun had by all.