Goat Mt. Lookout Site

Picked this out of the popular 2004 "100 Hikes in the North Cascades" guidebook, thinking it would be a scenic and fairly easy (5 miles round trip) hike to take some out of town (Italian!) guests to and show off our fine Northwest scenery! It even had 2 pictures (one in color)showing a fine view of Shuksan in both.
 The book said the spur trail (to the former lookout site) was easy to miss, was unmaintained and faint and that part was all too accurate! We actually hiked at least a half mile beyond it before deciding we must have missed it somehow. After backtracking and locating the spur, we headed up it to find it was badly overgrown with everything from ferns to brush and even small trees! Still, there were signs that someone had tried the trail: Broken ferns and even part of a colorful bootlace or cord of some kind.
Finally, after a half hour or more of this bushwacking, we arrived at a small rocky knoll that looked like it could've supported a normal sized lookout at one time. Unfortunately, the trees surrounding the site had reclaimed most of the view and most were at least 20-30 ft. tall, enough to block most long range views of the surrounding terrain! We could see Shuksan in peek-a-boo views between trees and it did match the pictures in the book, and there was a fine view of a shark-tooth shaped mountain a bit to the north of Shuksan, but overall the long range views promised in the book were being reclaimed by the forest. I'd estimate the pics in the book were taken at least 15-20 years ago, in spite of it's 2004 printing. If you have a 2004 or older "100 Hikes in the North Cascades" definitely scratch the lookout hike part of Goat Mountain off your list!
All was not lost, as we hiked down, and drove up toward the end of the Mt. Baker Highway and took in some nice views of Shuksan and other rugged peaks before the sun set.