I did a 28 mile loop from Chinook Pass south on the PCT then east towards American lake and then I went north on the American Ridge Trail and then I doubled back to Dewey Lake via the Dewey Lake Trail.

The Dewey Lake Trail is pretty awesome, but it could definitely use a log out. This would be a great place for a weeklong work party to log about 200 trees off the trail. Part of the American Ridge was also full of logs in a few places, but not bad compared to Dewey Lake Trail.

Two night backpack on American Ridge, 1st night dry camp near Mesatchee Jct, 2nd in Big Basin.

Drove from Yakima to Mesatchee TH. Afternoon start. Mesatchee Creek trail was recently logged out by a generous volunteer. Only 1 big downed tree on Mesatchee Creek trail. Significant but navigable snowfields on the final half mile before top of ridge. My partner used spikes for traction. Water abundant along Mesatchee Trail. Nice waterfall along the ascent. We camped at the nice dry camp at the junction with the American Ridge trail.

Day 2: The hike along American Ridge, East to Big Basin had several 16-24" trees down. After dropping into the basin the trail fades out, but can be picked up again by slightly dropping further, aiming for an alleyway through the trees. There was a decent trickle of water before hitting the trees. We camped at a well established site in the trees. Some mosquitos and we used head nets, but weren't too bad.

We then hiked up along the trail to the high point on American Ridge. Excellent views of Rainier. We opted to not continue farther along the trail and not drop the 1000' down toward Kettle Creek, due to snow. 

Day 3 - we hiked out, 4.5h back to the TH.

These photos show the view from the American Ridge trail from both sides of the Big Basin. We saw no other hikers for the duration of the trip.

The American Ridge is a special trail that is at risk of disappearing. We'd love to participate in a WTA backcountry trip in the William O Douglas!

We climbed Goat Peak from the Goat Creek trailhead. The trail was a consistent uphill the entire way and well-maintained. There was quite a bit of deadfall over the trail, adding a small adventure in places. About halfway to the ridge, a small creek crossed the trail and ran along it briefly, turning the trail into a mud pit. This was the only water source and not a great one—bring all the water you'll need, especially because this one won't last all season.

Intermittent snow started as we neared the junction with American Ridge. By midday it was fairly soft and we postholed more than once. Luckily, the snow was inconsistent the whole way and was never more than a nuisance.

The American Ridge trail is slightly less well-maintained and more aggressively graded, but offers open views in two directions. The actual summit is a short scramble above the trail. Although the summit was once home to a fire lookout, we did not find any evidence of the historical building. We did find a summit log and registered ourselves!

I recorded a total distance of 9.3 miles out and back, which agrees with WTA's posted mileage but not with our guidebook!

This is two completely different hikes depending on where you turn around.

The first 2.3 miles to a prominent, but unnamed peak/ridge right at 4,520 is a nice hike. There are a dozen small blow downs or burnt trees to maneuver around, and only 1 or 2 tricky places where you have to watch for the trail as is disappears where wildfires have reclaimed the mountain. Almost no snow.

After 2.3 miles, everything is made up and the points don't matter. Or, the trail is made up, and the miles don't matter. Wayfinding is arduous, the trail is barely a concept, and after another half mile, the mountain becomes a snowfield. There are no tracks or landmarks and after walking for a quarter mile staring at my GPS I gave up and turned around. Not worth the struggle.

Fantastic snowshoe trip up to Goat Peak today with ngie! We started from the Goat Creek trailhead off of the Bumping River Road across from Cougar Flats Campground. There is still a snow berm across the parking lot, but we were able to park completely off the Bumping Lake road. The first part of the trail was submerged under the melting snow, and the snow was super soft, so put on snowshoes for the first part. Once we got up about 100 vertical feet, most of the trail was snow free, so we stowed the snowshoes, and were able to hike up to 4400ft, before we ran into continuous snow, where we put snowshoes on, and I left them on all the way to the summit.

Up at 6000ft we ran into some super steep terrain. Ngie put on crampons and took out their ice axe for this part. I didn't have my ice axe with me or crampons, so I just went up the super steep slope with snowshoes. Up at 6230ft we got to the top of a sub peak, and had to do some scrambling, along with some tricky down scrambling to get to the saddle between Goat Peak, and this sub peak. After this, it was a steep snowshoe up to the summit. Some awesome views from the summit. The top of Mt Rainier was in the clouds along with Mount Aix, but we were able to see so many other peaks, along with Bumping Lake. It was a bit windy on the summit, so we didn't linger long.

Coming down the super steep slope was a bit tricky with snowshoes, but we made it down without slipping. We pretty much took our same route down, finishing at 6:10pm. Excellent trip!! 8.9 miles with 3707 ft elevation gain