Last year, Forest Road 41 was closed due to a wash out. The Forest Service does not expect the road to be repaired this year.

On 6/14/2012 they report:
Timber sale closes road at mile 1.7 to all traffic through mid-August.

After this sale the road will remain gated at mile 8.6 just beyond the Canyon Creek bridge due to washouts, not expected to be repaired this year.

For more on road conditions along the Mountain Loop Scenic Byway:
http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/mbs/home/?cid=stelprdb5150593

The trail to Goat Flats is notorious for being rough, with roots that grab and trip, big eroded steps, large rocks and overgrowth encroaching on the tread. The Spring/Manning guide book tells us that it will take 2 hours to travel the 2.5 miles from the trail head to Saddle Lake. All of this is – true.

My pup and I headed up to spend the night at the Flats with the secondary intention of hiking to Tin Can Gap. (As a Hike-a-Thonner, I wanted to be sure to get as much mileage in as possible.) The trip up to Saddle Lake is filled with peek-a-boo views of Three Fingers, Mt. Baker and Whitehorse. There are still a variety of flowers to enjoy and several water spots for furry friends. Once at Saddle Lake, the bugs began to appear in irritating numbers. Dragonflies are abundant at the lake, as are young frogs. A black bear was sighted moments before my arrival.

Continuing on to the Flats, the terrain opens up more and more marked by small meadows and an increasing number of tarns – many of which were occupied by dozens of tadpoles. We finally crested the low ridge and entered the Flats. There are a few campsites and several boot worn trails.

Views from the Flats are everything they are purported to be. They are far reaching and spectacular.

We continued on to Tin Can Gap which is about another mile or so past the Flats. There are still patches of snow on the trail here, but most hikers were navigating them with no difficulty. If you are not comfortable on snow, a pair of trekking poles will serve you well.

The Gap gives you an excellent view of the Queest-Alb glacier and the lookout perched precariously on top of South Three Fingers. It is both impressive and startling how far it still is from the Gap. The route to the summit is still very icy and snow covered. It would be wise to skip the summit unless you have at the minimum an ice axe. Some were choosing to use crampons as well. Personally, I was not equipped for the trip up and my pup (who at nearly 15 was so tired I had to put him in my pack!) had no interest in continuing.

We returned to camp to watch a truly spectacular sunset over Puget Sound and marveled at the sheer size of our urban areas. The moon, looking particularly large, slid down in the sky illuminating the Sound’s waters with a glow that rivaled the city lights.

It was warm enough to lie out under the stars and watch for meteors well into the night. For a change, I was actually able to stay awake long enough to enjoy the all too rare opportunity to see the Milky Way.

The trip out takes nearly as long as the trip in. However, the abundance of salmonberries and soon to arrive blueberries help to pass the time with sweet-tart goodness.

The trail #641 is now snow-free to just beyond Saddle Lake (about 4000') and the many fallen trees over the trail have recently been cleared (thanks to the USFS). There is still snow covering much of the trail to Goat Flats and most of the trail to Tin Can Gap (TCG). The trail (upper route) beyond TCG is totally snow covered, with very steep exposure to rocks below.
We went in, carrying heavy packs for lookout maintenance, on Friday and decided the safest route (which we had planned for by bringing harness, rope, etc.) would be over the glacier. We arrived at the lookout just after sunset since we also had to rope up and belay over to the middle ladder.
We got three sides scraped and painted and some old window putty replaced on Saturday, leaving early Sunday. We followed our route back over the Queest-Alb glacier to Tin Can Gap.
During our trip we encountered only one person who went beyond TCG and made it to the lookout. He went in on the upper route and confirmed to us and wrote in the lookout register that it was dangerous. He went back via the glacier below the upper route.
The weather-window couldn't have been better for us, as it remained above 50°F on both nights at the 6854' lookout, south peak. Just right for the applied paint to dry (some years we go up and cannot paint at all). Anyone interested in maintaining the lookout can visit the everettmountaineers.org where future trips will be posted.

http://www.flickr.com/[…]/

additional note: Someone left a bivy-sack behind in the lookout...name it and claim it!

We decided to do an overnight conditioning hike in to Goat Flats. Road is open to the trail head and we did not encounter any snow until about a mile from saddle lake. There is a new difficulty though in the first 1 and half miles and that is downed trees. I counted 30 fallen trees across the trail in the first mile and a half, many are climb up and roll over 4-5 in diameter. About 23 on them need a chainsaw to deal with them.
From saddle lake it is snow it is a snow covered trail the rest of the way up. Very few patches o dirt the rest of the way. At the pond area above saddle lake there is still 8 feet of snow in that drainage basin.
The trail that somebody put in the snow varies a little from the usual trail but it is effective in keeping out of the streams. There is a problem at about 4 miles in. Instead of rising up to the top of the ridge and following the ridge line into goatflats they went went down into the valley below goatflats and then decided to go up vertically to goatflats, about a 800 foot vertical scramble in a 20 foot wide shaft at 70 drgrees. At was a crampons and ice axe climb to get to goatflats because we were unwilling to backtrack.
On the way out the next morning we put in tracks the way the trail usually goes down.
There about 6 feet of snow in goat flats area and some very large cornices drifting to the north along the trail route up the hill.
We hiked up in the clouds with poor visibility but just before sunset the clouds dropped and we had a stellar sunset, bright orange glow on the surrounding peaks.