August 9 - 10, 2014
There are two weeks left before our Wonderland trip and we wanted to do one last conditioning hike to work out all the kinks in our gear, food, clothing, etc. I first heard about the Goat Rocks Wilderness from a coworker who took the boy scouts up there a few times so I did some research on Friday afternoon and off we went Saturday morning on an approximate 3.5 hour drive from Mill Creek to Berry Patch Trailhead. This trip report from 2013 is a great resource if you want to do this hike. I was very impressed with the maps. We took the same path, minus the side trip up to Hawkeye. In total, 14.9 miles hiked.
Since this was an overnight trip and the plan was to hike clockwise from Berry Patch TH to Goat Lake (5.8 miles) the first day, we slept in and took our sweet time getting ready. As all trip reporters mention the last hour driving was spent going up an often bumpy, dusty, gravel road. Surprisingly there were very few potholes. Going down was much less of a drag. We were on the trail by 1:30 pm. If I was going to do this trip all over again (which I would in a heartbeat) clockwise from Berry Patch is the way to go. You get the climb out of the way in the beginning and the views and the hike up are just spectacular. Just wow. We also got to pet a lot of tough, athletic and obedient dogs.
Turns out that our camera crapped out at really random times. Some of our most beautiful pictures have the quality of a snapshot from security camera footage. Argh!
As you can see Goat Lake is still mostly frozen over. We met a gentleman from Colombia who asked us to take a picture of him after he jumped in for a quick shower. He was shivering afterwards, but had a huge smile on his face.
There were so many goats just hanging out on the slopes at the aptly named Goat Lake. We were told that from Hawkeye you could see them very well. The little ones were sliding on the snow. Unfortunately we were not able to make it up to Hawkeye. I heard it's amazing up there.
The rest of the hike was a gentle slope down through the forest with my swollen hand. I got bit on Saturday afternoon and my hand ballooned up by Monday morning. It was on fire! Went to the doctor who was very concerned so I'm taking some antibiotics now. No worries, not going to lose my hand. The swelling has gone down significantly (it's Thursday today) and now I can see my knuckles and the tendons in my hand. Horray!
There are two weeks left before our Wonderland trip and we wanted to do one last conditioning hike to work out all the kinks in our gear, food, clothing, etc. I first heard about the Goat Rocks Wilderness from a coworker who took the boy scouts up there a few times so I did some research on Friday afternoon and off we went Saturday morning on an approximate 3.5 hour drive from Mill Creek to Berry Patch Trailhead. This trip report from 2013 is a great resource if you want to do this hike. I was very impressed with the maps. We took the same path, minus the side trip up to Hawkeye. In total, 14.9 miles hiked.
Since this was an overnight trip and the plan was to hike clockwise from Berry Patch TH to Goat Lake (5.8 miles) the first day, we slept in and took our sweet time getting ready. As all trip reporters mention the last hour driving was spent going up an often bumpy, dusty, gravel road. Surprisingly there were very few potholes. Going down was much less of a drag. We were on the trail by 1:30 pm. If I was going to do this trip all over again (which I would in a heartbeat) clockwise from Berry Patch is the way to go. You get the climb out of the way in the beginning and the views and the hike up are just spectacular. Just wow. We also got to pet a lot of tough, athletic and obedient dogs.
Turns out that our camera crapped out at really random times. Some of our most beautiful pictures have the quality of a snapshot from security camera footage. Argh!
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| Up, up and away! |
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| MSH. I really like this picture with all the blues and ridge tops. |
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| Goat Rocks |
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| Mt. Adams |
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| Goat Lake |
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| Crazy goats! |
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| That's the Supermoon. Unbelievably bright. This was taken around 9pm. |
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| This was taken around 11pm. That's how bright it was with the moon. We had long shadows. It was weird. |
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| Sunrise and the packs. August 1st = hunting season. I feel safe with my pack ;) |
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| Mt. Adams at sunrise. |
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| This is a grouse we saw in the meadows on our hike out near the 86-96 junction to PCT. She was making noises and we saw her baby scurry into the bushes. |
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| Took a little detour and walked on the PCT for about a mile before heading back to 96 via the Bypass Trail. |
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| I'll leave you with this lovely picture of my balloon hand. |