Just a brief note to let fellow hikers know that we saw a bear on our hike on Sunday afternoon.  It was about 10' from the trail and scurried off when it heard us.  Beautiful trail, beautiful hike!

The lower trail is really good for kids. They will get to learn about the railroad and play on a red caboose. The upper trail is not kid friendly, however, there are great views. Really liked this trail, it is easy with great historical information along the way.

Finally decided to do the Iron Goat Trail after putting it off for a long time.  Glad we did, nice trail and great history.  We went from the FS road trailhead (not interpretive site lot) to Wellington and back and my tracker showed 12.4 miles roundtrip with some random spurs and off-shoots.  Took the upper grade planning to do a loop down to the lower grade on the way back, but we missed the fork so it ended up as an out and back.  We plan on going back to do the lower grade sometime.

Road is in decent shape, just avoid the potholes and go slow if you have a low car.  Lots of flowers right now and the salmon berries are about to ripen.  Didn't see any signs of bears that day.  As others have said, the upper grade gets a little overgrown at some points and there is quite a bit of stinging nettle.  So be able to identify it and deal with it if you're sensitive to the stings, luckily for me it's only a minor annoyance.  Contrary to the hike warnings, the toilet at Wellington trailhead was open.

An excellent trail that combines nature and history! We were looking for a longer hike with minimal elevation gain. We started our hike at the Martin Creek trailhead at around 3pm. There were only around 10 vehicles in the lot., which was surprising given the weather was perfect and it was Saturday. Taking the advice of other trip reports we immediately ascended to the upper trail as soon as we could. This was wise as other crossover trails were much steeper in their ascent. The upper trail is starting to become overgrown at around waist to chest height. The trail is easy to navigate but might be difficult for children. There is a lot of stinging nettle along the path. Pants are highly recommended, long sleeves too if you can tolerate them in the warmer weather. If you are bringing young ones, you should stick to the ADA path until the upper path is cleared. Along the upper path there is the option to climb a staircase to the top of one of the retaining walls that promises access to a log lined spillway and a reservoir that was discovered in the early 1990s. The mountain views are great from the top of the wall, but it is difficult to access the log-lined spillway and reservoir. We trudged through thick mud and very overgrown trail to the spillway, but decided to turn back as the trail to the reservoir looked even more overgrown and steep than what we had just attempted. We continued on and eventually had a snack at the Windy Point Overlook. We ventured a little further to the trail toilet (talk about a throne with a view!), then went back to the Windy Point crossover to the ADA trail. The Windy Point crossover trail is steep with many switchbacks and was relatively easy to descend, but would be challenging to climb. In total we encountered 15-20 people throughout the day, most in family groups. Lots of wildflowers and a few salmon berries that were starting to change color. We arrived back to our car at around 7pm and there was plenty of daylight and only one other vehicle. In all, we took more pictures than can be posted here and had a great time!

Iron goat trail has 2 trail heads, Iron goat Martin creek and other as Iron goat interactive trailhead.
Interactive trailhead is in center between Martin creek & Wellington.
Lower trailhead between Martin & interactive in 2.25 miles and ADA accessible. 70% Upper trail is full of vegetation but manageable.
What an engineering marvel of past..