The Nisqually entrance at Rainier is super amazing especially when you run into a trail friend in person. Hiking is about trail friends; we seek helpful people who guide us on our way.

As usual we carpooled to the Nisqually entrance and Westside Rd this lovely morning. Just as we are starting our Tacoma Mountaineer's Hiking Group at around 8 am I run into Mary (Mary&Mollie) heading down on her bike. She's already made her ascent in the dark for a sunrise at Gobblers Knob while I'm waiting for my coffee pot to serve up my second cup. Yippee! Good trail karma!

Westside Road was busier than normal today with big traffic "orange devils" aka very large dump trucks (2) that rumbled up full and down empty along the road meaning business in a way I haven't seen here in at least 20 years. The friendly drivers were on a mission to get the job done and made me think of a new system, road maintenance, shuttle or?

I hope the force of nature is with everyone working here and they all have a safe fall and winter.

Gobblers Knob TH is a few miles up the road so keep your ears open, the trucks are big. The pretty Tahoma was building in intensity as the day progressed. Tahoma peeked out from the layers of fog rising from the trees.

As we made our way to Lake George we took a quick tour and grabbed a snack. A belted king fisher, I've seen here before squawked while making its way across the lake.

The work of the post depression Civilian Conservation Corp putting folks back to work, Gobblers Knob fire lookout sat perched high on the rocky knob in the mist.

The trail and lookout had few visitors today. There was a recent break in as seen by the boarded up top window of the door. Why? There is nothing in there except mice and spiders. As far as bees or wasps, we were not troubled but a woman was stung just as we arrived.

We ate lunch waiting for our show on the deck realizing our last bits of hiking weather would soon come to an end. 

In summary, a silent walk up the road, a more tranquil spot at the lake, and even better time to reflect at the Marine Memorial remembering the past and the history of time of the fire lookout.

LIMITED WATER SOURCES: If you are hiking bring at least 2L of water or your water filter for Lake George approx 5 miles away from the TH. We saw no water along the road except the Tahoma Creek which isn't suitable for filtering due to the glacial flour.

BIKE IF YOU DON'T HIKE ROADS: If you are riding, you can lockup at the bike stand. Also E-bike friendly.

WASPS: If you are allergic they are stinging.

Remember Leave No Trace

13 miles, 2800' gain

Perfectly clear and sunny day. We setup camp at Lake George then proceeded t Goat Lake, stopping by Gobbler's Knob on the way back. Absolutely gorgeous views of Rainier.

This is definitely an underrated campsite! We did an overnight (Sat-Sun) at Lake George. This would be an excellent introduction to backpacking, but maybe not the best day hike (although Gobblers Knob has excellent views!).

We got to Longmire WIC around 8:30 am to pick up permits, with no waiting or issues. Got to the trailhead around 9 am; road is in good condition, and very doable for low clearance vehicles. The hike to Lake George went rather quickly: the first ~3.5 miles on Westside road went by quickly (~900 ft of gain), but had some nice views of Rainier and fall foliage. The Lake George trail was in great condition and again, had nice peeks of Rainier (~500 ft of gain). We got to camp in about 1.5 hours, and set up at campsite 4. We then hiked up to Gobblers Knob, which offered majestic views of Rainier and was surprisingly empty! We saw only one person and had the view to ourselves for the ~30 mins we spent up there. The lookout tower had a lot of flies, but they mostly stayed in the trees and the shade. Then, we took an excursion to Goat Lake to get some more miles under our belts. The trail to Goat Lake is quite brushy, but the lake is nice and has lots of blueberry bushes surrounding it :) Overall, we did around 10.5 miles with 3600 ft of gain that day.

Lake George camp itself was very nice: spacious campsites, bug-less, quiet, and a surprisingly clean and pleasant pit toilet (which is not something I've ever said before!). Thank you, NPS! No running water as of now, as far as we could tell. The views of the lake were very nice at sunset!

Not gonna lie, the first 4 miles of this hike on the road, was an awful lot like 4 miles on a logging road. Would’ve been a slog if I wouldn’t of brought a bike. As a matter fact, I wouldn’t recommend this unless you’re a trail runner, or you bring a bike.
I thought it was clever, but there were a bunch of bikes, locked to the national park version of a bike rack at the “Trail“ trail head at round pass. So I’m not very clever.
Even so, 4 miles uphill on a bike without a break was a butt kicker. And then the hike began.
The trail to George lake reminded me a lot of the PCT near Snoqualmie pass. Except for the massive stratovolcano poking out of the trees every now and again. Beautiful trail, smooth, tread, gentle climb.
The views stayed peekaboo even past George Lake, until very near the lookout. But then…
Worth it. Go.
And so uncrowded. I saw only three pairs and two solo hikers, eight total people on this spectacular day.

Hiked to Gobblers Knob. No rain but plenty of clouds swirling around. We do appreciate the Tahoma Creek (looks more like a river). On the way back it was about twice what it was in the morning and we could hear boulders pushed by the current. Met one person on the way up and had one person at the tower for about 10 minutes. Other than that no one.

Did not have a view of The Mountain until about a mile from the car. I could just barely make out a small part. Actually the clouds swirling around first blocking views and then disappearing were very entertaining. Wish we had a recliner inside the lookout. We could spend the day watching the changing scenery.

About the lookout. Someone brought a crowbar up there and tried to break in. A window was broken and crowbar marks on the frame. My God. Who are these deviants? Six miles in and there are people like this? All that effort with no gain. Stupid people are too stupid to know they are stupid.

Smattering of fall colors below the summit. The Mountain was obscured from view, but we could see the beginning of Tahoma Creek and The S. Puyallup. They are on the far right of the pic of the elusive Mountain.

On the way back we met a family and couple going to the lake to camp and one day hiker. Another great day in the Park.