Trip Type: 1-night, Loop
Trails:
- Green River Trail 213
- Vanson Ridge Trail 213A
- Vanson Lake Trail 217B
- Goat Mountain Trail 217
This trip started out as a 2 night weekend trip however, as usual plans change.
Getting to the trail head wasn't an issue at all, I used Google Maps which did take me on NF-2742 that did have gates (open, at the time) which may pose an issue if/when they were closed.
Once on NF-25, the road certainly has slumps, potholes and other potential hazards, and driving speed will be slow.
Day 1 / Friday
Parked at the Goat Mountain / Deadmans Lake TH, and took the Green River Trail (across the road from the Parking Lot), and headed downhill. The trail was wonderfully soft filled with needles and other forest duff. Trail condition was excellent. I followed this down to the junction, where it splits off and if taken, will take you back up the hill on the other side of Ryan Lake.
I continued towards the horse camp, and at one point I passed through a small meadow, and the trail widened which looked like it could have been an old road at one point.
Because it was fairly late I stayed the night at the horse camp. There is no water here, and it's a little bit of a walk to the river where you can gain access to the surface.
Day 2 / Saturday
The forecast called for showers in the afternoon and rain on Sunday, which was my planned day to finish. I wasn't in the mood to be wet over-night so I decided I would see if I could hike the rest of the trail in one day, this would be dependent on how much time I had left once I reached my planned destination, Vanson Lake.
The Green River trail is wonderful; peaceful, and once you hit the old growth it just becomes even better. The trail isn't always near the river, and frequently you can't see it even when you are near. As others have previously mentioned, the trail has been re-routed around washouts. The trail itself was in good condition, but being early in the season there was a fair amount of blow-downs that had to be navigated through. The trail was always easy to pickup but some of the downed trees took a little effort to pass by.
I arrived at Vanson lake around 11:30 am, two hours before my targeted time of 12:30 pm. The lake was covered in mist, it was cold and I certainly wasn't feeling like hanging around for the rest of the day. So I pulled out my stove and ate my dinner, while the dog ate his. I figured this would help give us energy to finish the 8.5 miles that we had left to go to reach the trail head.
As we made our way across the ridges, we passed several people heading down to the Green River, and once we broke out of the tree's the clouds had partially broken up giving us some views, unfortunately we couldn't see one mountain top, but at least the views of the valleys were glorious. Especially hearing the thundering of the streams draining from the Venus lakes and Island Lake across the valley in the Mt Margaret Backcountry.
A few short hours later we arrived back at the trail head and headed home. Tired, but satisfied in completing a nearly 20 mile hike in one day.
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