With temperatures near 90 degrees, hiking 17 miles in the Cascade foothills might seem like a less than reflective choice, but when thought through, it was a pretty good idea. It was the other elements that made our hike to Vanson Lake a fairly uncomfortable experience.

Vanson Lake is a small piece of water in the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. It is not however, located within the blast zone and three trails converge nearby to make it a central feature in a little known roadless area between the Green River to the south and the Cowlitz to the north.

There are several ways to reach Vanson Lake and the trails that form an area of almost complete serenity just south of Taidnaipam Park on the upper end of Riffe Lake. This is an area where you go for peace and solitude. While there is plenty of scenery, especially in the form of cascading creeks and waterfalls, don’t expect to see alpine scenery with picturesque scenes without significant effort.

Trails were in excellent condition.

That may change if you access the area from the Green River area where the Green River and Goat Mountain Trail junctions with the Goat Creek Trail. The routes out of the Green River Valley are on south facing slopes in the Mt. St. Helens blast zone and would have been a miserable experience on this day. As it was, my 10 year old son and I hiked in the deep, cool, shaded woods alongside creeks that forced us to cross them on occasion; Sometimes in refreshing, bare feet.

For the first 4 miles, the trail follows tributaries of Goat Creek. This late in the summer, water levels are light as creeks tumble over impressive falls. At just under 4,000 feet, we ran into surprisingly large patches of snow, and more impacting, the swarms of bugs that can usually be associated with the woods shortly after snow melt. From some beautiful meadows, we started climbing again to the top of Vanson Ridge where an important junction of trails occurs.

The trip from either location is a long day hike. I would suggest staying at least one night out to make the hike worthwhile.

As for us, the bugs really took away from our experience. Above 3,500 feet, stopping to enjoy scenery, crossing streams or taking a dip into Vanson Lake made for a miserable existence. Of course, that is the nature of dry, hot weather and hiking. While we hoofed what amounted to 17 miles on the hottest day of the year, we barely even noticed the heat in the deeply wooded canyon but we were very careful to drink an incredible amount of water to stay hydrated. A few early season huckleberries, blueberries and salmonberries supplemented what little lunch we ate at the lake.

As a final insult, we hiked to the point of Vanson Peak at about 4,900 feet elevation. From there, views of Mt. Adams, Mt. Rainier, Riffe Lake and the northern end of the Mount St. Helens blast zone greeted us. The haze and smoke made the entire region almost unrecognizable.

For more photos, drop by my blog at http://nwrockranger.blogspot.com/

I started late and finished late. I arrived at about 1:30pm and returned to my car at about 6:30pm. I took the Goat Creek Trail #205 and made it about 4 miles to the 3500 foot level before losing the trail in snow. By far, the highlight of the trail is “Cathedral Falls”, but there many unnamed, waterfalls joining the flow towards the Cowlitz River. I was hoping to get to Vanson Lake or at least the top of the ridge itself.

The trail is usually streamside through mature forest and is in excellent condition until it gets into the snow. Much of the forest was burned in the last hundred years or so, but a mosaic of much larger, very impressive trees exist.

This is a low budget trail and there is a lot of water in the creeks. There are no bridges or engineering to help hikers across the streams it crosses. There is about a 300 meter section of the trail where I just took off my boots and went barefoot to save them from becoming inundated with water. It is a good hike for a hot day!

My son and I made an initial trip into mild elevations to see what the early hiking season had in store. The falls can't be much over about 2500 feet (northern aspect though). We got within about a mile of the trailhead of the Goat Creek Trail. Our goal was Cathedral Falls. Snowshoes might have been helpful, but the trail would have been very dangerous about 100 feet in the approach to the falls themselves. I would say that we have 3 to 4 weeks before the trailhead will be accessible by my Elantra and we can gain access to the falls themselves. The second photo is from a trip we took to the falls on May 27th, 2007.

Again, hiking with my family, my goal was to scout for backcountry locations in the Vanson Lake area. The first two miles of trail had clearly been worked on and logged. I really appreciated all of the work that had gone into it. About a quarter mile beyoond the junction of the #218 trail to Tumwater Mountain, a huge (probably 60+ inch) Douglas Fir and it associated debris is down across the trail. The waterfall was the site of a great lunch.