Goat Mountain and Deadman's Lake — Sunday, Jun. 21, 2020

Spent the day up near MSH, along a trail that marked the demarcation between the blast zone and the unaffected lands from the 1980 eruption. This trail has skyrocketed to the top of my “favorites” list and I am already dreaming of a second trip. We could see so many cool trails along the surrounding hills beckoning you to climb various rock walls and cliffs. You could also hear the wind shifting between the east and west ridges along with the roar of distant waterfalls.

Access: if you are using the GPS coordinates from either AllTrails or WTA, please note that you will arrive short of the trailhead due a closed and locked gate. It is possible to loop around by taking other FS roads, so you should plan another 30-40 minutes for the drive to where you can start the hike. May want to find your route ahead of time as there is no signal in the area. We were using Google maps and could find the very large loop needed to get to the parking area.

Trail Conditions: easy to follow and well maintained, but needed our map as there are a few off-shoot trails. The first 2.5 miles is a steep climb with about 1700’ of gain. We came upon several snow patches that needed to be crossed to continue along the trail so we were thankful for our poles and microspikes.

View: as you travel towards the areas affected by the blast, MSH is off to your left and Rainier is off to your right (north). Also a peakaboo view of Mt Hood off to the south.

Flowers: bear grass was up and should be in full bloom in 1-2 weeks. Same with lupine. Tons of phlox along the rocky ridge and also saw dark purple larkspur and red and orange Indian paint brush. Avalanche lily and trillium were most abundant on the forested section of the trail.

Goat Mountain and Deadman’s Lake
11.5 miles and 2950’ of elevation gain.