My friend Tom and I had been talking about doing this hike for several weeks. Blessed with a forecast of partly cloudy, Tom, his two dogs Baxter and Chipper, Tom's friend Dave, and I started out at 7:00 a.m. from Seattle. We had trouble finding the turnoff from Hwy 90 onto Road 41 (the sign is hard to see), and trouble finding the Goat Lake Trailhead (the sign is hard to see). But by 9:35 we were on our way up the trail.

From the trailhead to Saddle Lake the tread was less than friendly to aged feet (we're all over 60), consisting alternatively of roots coated with slippery mud, deep boot-shlurping mud, or nice smooth rocks with one or two inches of water. The brush was a minor irritation compared to the mud. It took us about 1:20, and we found three ripe species of huckleberries (V. membranaceum, ovalifolium, and later deliciosum) and some great Rubus (salmonberries), all of which took away the agony of the feet. We started to go the wrong way at the lake (the sign for Goat Flat is, you guessed it...hard to see).

At the lake we were passed by Zach, a young whippersnapper, but a nice kid for all that, and I told him we would see him when he was coming down from the summit as we were struggling up. From the lake to Goat flat was another 1:10 or 1:20, with much of the same trail conditions. Goat flat was like a Trojan rooting section with red V. deliciosum bushes and yellow grasses, punctuated by dark conifers. The toilet is falling apart, but in a scenic enough spot. We had lunch just above Goat Flat.

Onward...First we ran into Zach again, waiting for us by the side of the trail. He pointed out a mother black bear with two cubs in the meadow a few hundred meters away, and asked if he could hike together for safety, which we were happy to agree to. Then a little higher up were a group of 7 goats and another group of at least 4 or 5. The tread was much better on this section, and we arrived at Tin Can Gap after about another hour of hiking.

Then the hard part. I being the wimp of the group put on crampons to cross the first snowfield, but Tom, Dave, Zach, and the dogs went across without them, and in fact, just like the author of the previous report, even I felt I would have needed only the ice axe. Only Dave crossed the second snowfield; the rest of us scrambled down the moat without much trouble.

From there to the top was mostly a slog, punctuated by the final snowfield below the summit and a bit of a scramble to the foot of the ladders. The views continued to be spectacular, with clouds and mist floating among the peaks like a Chinese landscape painting.

We were at the top at 3:10, only ten minutes past our "drop...well I guess not quite dead" turn-around time, and stayed just long enough to take pictures; the dogs didn't climb the ladders. But I thought the ladders were much less scary than reported. And the dogs, silly dogs, as soon as they got down to the top snowfield, started chasing each other around at a mad clip as if they had been riding in the car for the past two hours and really needed exercise.

I, the wimp of the group, was very tired by this time, but still managed to take pictures all the way down to Goat Flat. We encountered the goats again on the way down, and some whistling marmots, which the dogs got a little too excited about. After Goat flat the wet, slippery, muddy tread and my increasing exhaustion started to get to me, and I slipped 10 or 12 times and fell four, and turned my ankle twice, but managed not to get injured and kept clomping down, stopping for a much-needed half-Nalgene of water and some raisins right before the lake.

From the lake down we went a little more slowly, and I was really sore. We got back to the trailhead at 7:50, just about 4:10 from the top, and 35 minutes after sunset, so the tread was not only muddy, rocky, watery, and slippery, but also invisible. And Tom (an ironman if there ever was one) had but to drive an hour in the dark on the trailhead road until we were in Granite Falls at McDonald's. But we had seen one of the most spectacular parts of the Cascades on a beautiful day with good friends, so who's to complain?

Recommended for a) really strong people or b) masochists.