Road is in ok shape, but as the previous report mentioned there’s some debris which is better navigated with a higher clearance vehicle. Some blowdowns to traverse, only a few that are super annoying! Snowline still starts after about 2 miles and route finding is important as the summer trail quickly vanishes underneath. We opted to stop before the last half mile push before the summit today, as snow conditions were deteriorating given that part of the trail is on the south side and the sun was giving it some pretty intense heat today. Some avy debris and presence of roller balls from our steps made us wary of taking any risks today, so we called it good a bit early. Snowshoes are still handy with all the slushy snow, but even those were sinking in good on the way down. It’ll be awhile yet before this trail is more safely accessible!

Hannegan Pass Road was snow free to the trailhead. There was woody debris and mud in places so not ideal for low clearance vehicles. The trail had a lot of trees down before the snowline. Most were easy to negotiate, but a group around mile 1.5  required some crawling and was difficult with a large pack. Patchy snow starts at the Wilderness boundary at 3600 feet near mile 2, and gets solid soon after. Route finding and travel through avalanche terrain required to reach the lookout point. Nothing was blooming yet along the trail, but the skunk cabbage was bright along the road. 

Don’t drive past Shuksan Picnic Area! We hiked to the trailhead from there and skipped the actual hike. Just under 5 miles round trip with ~1500 ft gained. The first mile we used microspikes but you can do it in boots with some slipping/post-holeing. 1/4 miles in we hiked past a pickup truck with five people working to dig it out. Don’t be those people. Park just off Mt Baker Highway!

Past the snow is a well maintained gravel forest road through an amazing forest with minimal short snowy patches. Bathroom is open at Goat Mt trailhead where we took a break, had a snack and turned around to hike back because my kiddo was with me. The actual trail looked clear from snow and ready for another day! 

Goat Mountain (off Baker Lake Rd)* note there are many Goat Mountains. This one is the one of Baker Lake Road near Grandy Lake/Creek. I am behind on thedirtbaguette.com, so please enjoy a stylized WTA Trip Report.

When: February 6th, 2022

Where: Nooksack and Sauk Suiattle Native Lands

Trail stats: 12ish miles/4000ft cumulative gain

Conditions: Clear and worryingly warm for a February Day 

Avy Risk: Orange above/near treeline, yellow below

Snow notes: Snow did not consistently begin until 3,5000ft so you do benefit from doing this one later in the season. We had been hoping to ski this peak, and I'd have agreed to if we'd seen better snow coverage along highway 20 heading east. However, the downed trees along the first 2 miles would have made this quite difficult

Gear needed: Snowshoes

Gear packed: but then not used: Ice axes, helmets, traction spikes

Other required items: A GPS track helps alot here. God bless the people who summited before us- we didn't use our track as we had footprints, but 100% I would have ditched the road and bushwacked straight up this mountain had I not had the patience.

GPS track: Goat Mountain | Gaia GPS

Context: We'd wanted to do something steep on this particular day, but a nearly 60-degree weather forecast in the lowlands convinced us that snow climbing would be a bad idea. Goat caught my partner Hwei Ling's attention last week, so we decided to see what it was about. I'd already been in the area (enjoying Artist Pt here: Artist Ridge - Huntoon Point, Artist Point Snowshoe, Table Mountain, Heather Meadows, Lake Ann (Mount Baker Highway) — Washington Trails Association (wta.org)) so a quick overnight in Burlington had me prepped to go.

Parking/accessibility: We parked in the designated spots along Baker Lake Road. Baker Lake Road is paved and in great shape. There is a blue gate blocking the rest of the road system (more in Trail Summary) so pahk ya cah (as they say in Boston) and start from there. No bathrooms are available. The gate on the road blocks any sort of mobility aid from rolling through on trail.

Trail summary: Begin the 5ish mile road-walk to the ridgeline of Goat Mountain. The road is often flat/not very steep and would make for an excellent beginners ski if it was not for the blowdowns. A flatter area above Grady Creek gave us trouble with more than 5 trees blocking the way.

I have a gate key for old Weyerhauser land in this area, but it wouldn't do much help here. A section of trail/old road is completely gone and requires a bit of scrambling in one section (will include photo), which is a shame because there are SO MANY cool roads we observed at a distance. 

At about 3400ft, we transitioned from boots to snowshoes. The road widens and becomes more ridgey, thus opening itself to more snow. The views of Sedro Wooley and Concrete were gorgeous from here. You have a great view of Mountain Loop Highway Peaks: Glacier, White Chuck, Sloan, and Pugh. Three Fingers and Whitehorse will become more visible as you gain high enough to see into Darrington.

As we walked higher on the road, the trail made a sharp left up up the ridge and off the road for the first time. You'll do this twice on the way up. The higher you climb, the more views of the North Cascades (the Pickets, the park, and Baker) you'll get.

We transitioned onto the road for a short bit, then back up the ridge. We only had 3/4s of a mile to go, but it seemed to go on forever- mostly because 1,000ft of gain still remained. 

We ran into the couple who'd created the snowshoe track about 600ft below the summit. I was so grateful for them as we'd benefitted from not having to route find through the trees. With the warming day, each step was getting squishier, and I thought they'd had the right idea starting early. 

100ft below the summit, the couple had removed their snowshoes for the steeper climbing, but we kept ours on. This is the only area of true avalanche terrain so watch out. The way up was easy, but the way down was a bit trickier. An axe and traction would be a MUST on a colder day here.

The summit of Goat is a big ole cornice! We stayed south (right) near what are usually boulders and tried to get the best views of Shuksan and Baker- which are now hard to see beyond the giant cornice. The Twin Sister Range is in STUNNING condition, and I plan to be there next weekend seeing how high we can get on on the North Twin. WOWZERS.

The weather was much windier so we downclimbed back to the spot the couple had re-snowshoed for lunch. It had to be about 50 degrees in the sunny, windless snow. I cooked in my puffies and devoured all my foot. It would be a 15+ mile, 5,500ft+ gain weekend, and I write to you still a bit short on caloric intake for tough winter travel.

The way back went quick. Nothing to report. We did wish for skis on the road bits, but we dipped below the snowline so quickly that I stand by our use of snowshoes. Time frames if its helpful:

0830 start

1245 summit

1320 descent start

1600 back at the car in leisure

I'd give this one high marks for being accessible via car in snowy conditions with moderate avy risk, but I'm not sure I'd do it again without gate access. The areas around it sure look good for exploring, so one day I hope to write to you with beta on nearby Red Rock and some of those mysterious roads heading north to Baker.

If you liked this trip report, tell me! I'm @thedirtbaguette on IG and will have this report up on thedirtbaguette.com once I finish writing about my climbs in 2021. 

The road to the trailhead is one of the nicest FS roads I've ever seen. One or two small potholes that are easily avoided. (Seriously, I've seen worse in the city.)

The trail up to the view point is really nice and well maintained. There were some muddy patches and I slipped on wet wood once, but no major obstacles. We snapped some photos at the knoll with awesome views of Baker and Shuksan before continuing on to the summit.

The trail to the summit from the knoll takes a little finding since there are so many small paths shooting off through the patches of huckleberries (that are absolutely delicious at the moment). Once we got on the right track, it was easy to follow. The exposed face of Goat Mountain is a lot less traveled-- a few small sections were washed out and kind of steep, but still easily manageable. Not too long before we gained the ridgeline (maybe 700-800 feet from the summit) there was a small stream where we stopped to refill our water bottles. The last section straight up the face is steeeeep. From the knoll to the summit is about 1500 elevation is just a little over a mile. 

The true summit is a scramble that we didn't do, but looks like a class 3 that adds maybe 40-50 feet elevation. It looks like it would be easier to do early season with more snow and less scree, so we'll be coming back.

Overall my Gaia tracking shows 9.3 miles RT with 4200 elevation gain from car to summit.