Goat Lake — Sunday, Jul. 19, 2020

Normally, a busy place like Goat Lake is something I avoid like the plague (or Covid 19, as the case may be).  But 20 years ago I took an inflatable rubber boat to the far end of the lake and discovered a botanical wonderland.  I didn’t have too much time that day to explore it and wanted to go back.  I didn’t manage to do it again until June 2018.  It was a Sunday.  I arrived at the trailhead at 6 am and there were already 40 cars at the trailhead.  But by being early, I passed only a couple of people on the trail on the way in and I left so late that I saw only one person on the way out.  On that day I discovered some new things about Goat Lake and planned to do yet another, more thorough, exploration.

When you arrive at Goat Lake, the only meadow you pass through is a six foot high jungle of bracken fern, thimbleberry, and cow parsnip.  There are a few tiger lilies.  Hardly a wildflower paradise.  On the far end of the lake there is an L-shaped fan of rock debris from an ancient rockslide.  This corner cannot be seen from the near end.  Over the centuries, the slide, colonized first by lichens and moss, has accumulated just enough soil to support ferns and flowering plants.  Not being out-competed by the aggressive bracken fern and cow parsnip that thrive in the more abundant, fertile soil at the near end of the lake, several dozen species of plants not found elsewhere in the basin, eke out a living.  I came on this trip to make an inventory of the plants as well as to further explore the geology of the area.  At the end of this trip report I have attached a list of the showier species I found that are currently in bloom.  They include elephant’s head, western tofieldia, white bog orchid, Cascade penstemon, red columbine, scarlet paintbrush and sharp-tooth angelica.  The entire list of species is several times as long, remarkable for such a small area.  When I came to Goat Lake for the first time twenty years ago, the steep walls of the cove formed by the slide, too steep to walk on, were also covered with wildflowers.  Nature moves on, however, and most of the wildflowers have now been replaced by slide alder and other shrubby plants.  But the slide itself is still a remarkable island of diversity, considering its small size.   

On my last trip in 2018, I went all the way back up the cirque behind Goat Lake.  I noticed there were some really interesting rocks back there and so became interested in the history of the geology and mines of Goat Lake.  Be forewarned, an inflatable rubber boat can be purchased for less than $40 and it is easy enough to paddle around the lake.  But getting all the way back is another matter and will not be a journey to everyone’s taste.  The floor of the valley behind Goat Lake is dense, swampy thicket of willows and spiny shrubs: devil’s club, gooseberry and even salmonberry, which in many places is not a spiny shrub, but is very much so in this locale.  This morass, so uninviting to the human pedestrian, is alive with birds.  I spent an hour sitting in my boat off-shore with binoculars watching birds flit from branch to branch and then fly out to perch on the snags out in the lake.  I saw a cedar waxwing, pair of western tanagers, a great blue heron and other birds.  Unless someone finds an animal trail through this mess, the only feasible route to the back is over the sometimes very large talus blocks on the right side of the valley.  There are places where I had to turn around and go a different way because I was surrounded by blocks of rock too high to climb over.  It took me two hours to get over this section, but I’m sure younger explorers will be able to do it in less time.   Eventually the brush ends and walking is easy. 

Finding detailed information about the mines has not been easy.   Most people know that Goat Lake was once the site of a mining town.  They were looking for gold, copper, silver, lead and zinc.  There were many mines in the area, not only the ones at Monte Cristo, but the trails up Bedal Creek and Cougar Creek to Sloan Peak are also old mining trails.   I have a crude hand-drawn map showing 11 tunnels in the Goat Lake basin.   One source says that it is possible to see the Wild Goat Lode when you arrive to Goat Lake.  I had binoculars and was unable to find it.   On the back wall of the basin was the Foggy Lode.  Unbelievably, there was once a building on that cliff face.  See: https://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/indocc/id/779/   Even after reaching the back, there is still a Class 3 scramble to reach the mine shaft.  For anyone wishing to actually visit the mine, there is an excellent trip report at NWHikers.net with far more pictures than I can include in this report: http://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1009559  Without this aid, I would never have found it.  But there were other mines.  But where?  Two independent sources give the coordinates 47.99722, -121.33667 for another one of the mines.  I have plugged those coordinates into Google Earth and I not found anything.  This is a spot high on the ridge above the lake, a little way down on the other side.  And yet, the more I studied the satellite view, the more evidence I found of trails up there.  Miners went up, no question, these are definitely not hiker trails.   Goat Lake basin is well-guarded by cliffs and although it is probably technically feasible to climb up to the ridge top without climber’s gear, it’s quite a climb.  I saw only one spot where I would consider attempting it and I did not have time to investigate it on my most recent visit.  There’s a lake up on the ridge, Cadet Lake and in a future trip report, I hope to camp up there and report on what I think is the more probable route up.  By studying the map, Google Earth and consulting old hiking guides I have deduced a more likely way to the top. 

On my last day to Goat Lake, I made a retrospectively rather uninformed attempt to reach Ida Lake and possibly the pass at the head of that basin.  My map of Goat Lake mine shafts includes two, the 92 Lode and the Ida Lode, located to the northwest of Foggy Peak.   If this is accurate, it puts them in the basin containing Ida Lake.  It is easy to get to the other side of Goat Lake on the log jam where Elliot Creek leaves the lake.  My Green Trails map shows a not-so-very steep traverse along the 3100’ contour into the valley of the Ida.  The forest understory in the vicinity of Goat Lake is very open and although I knew it was a long shot, I hoped that would continue that way along the route.  Not too far in, I hit a large talus field.  Not quite as formidable as the one discussed above, the largest blocks were mostly dishwasher to refrigerator size.  From there I entered a brief brushy area of vine maple and then a short open area.  And then, low and behold, the open forest I hoped to find.  This shows the openness around Goat Lake is not so much due to human trampling, but is just a natural characteristic of the forest.  The traverse started steep and got progressively steeper.  Pretty soon it stopped being safe.  Above were cliffs.  Below was a cliff.  I went back and tried going across at a lower spot.  Pretty soon I hit brush big-time.  So then I tried the interface between the cliff and the less steep section, which brought me back to the place I got stuck the first time.  This is a good example of why it is advisable to use a 7.5 minute map for off-trail travel and not the less detailed 15 minute Green Trails maps.  It’s steeper in there than it looked on my map.  Going to Lake Ida was spur-of-the-moment and I now know this is a really tough place to get to.  More research is required.  How did they get to all these mines?  Everything is so steep.

One of my photos shows elephant’s head, white bog orchid, western tofieldia with yellow arnica and red columbine in the background, the next photo scarlet paintbrush also with white bog orchid and finally an example of the kind of rocks that can be found in the back basin.  When you realize how hard it is to get in and out of there, you’ll know why I left it there in spite of coveting it for my shelf at home.  One of my objectives for the trip was to search for rocks with larger crystals than in this photo, but that was without success.

My list:

Columbia tiger lily – Lilium columbianum

White bog orchid – Platanthera dilatata

Slender bog orchid – Platanthera stricta

Cascade penstemon – Penstemon serrulatus

Stream bank arnica – Arnica lanceolata

Scarlet paintbrush – Castilleja miniata

Northern goldenrod – Solidago multiradiata

American sawwort – Saussurea americana

Elephant’s head – Pedicularis groenlandica

Sharp-tooth angelica – Angelica arguta

Red columbine – Aquilegia formosa

Western tofieldia – Triantha occidentalis

Idaho blue-eyed grass – Sisyrinchium idahoense

Self-heal – Prunella vulgaris

Cascade parsley fern – Cryptogramma cascadensis

Fringed grass of parnassus – Parnassia fimbriata

Sitka valerian – Valeriana sitchensis

Shrubby cinquefoil – Dasiphora fruticosa

Bitter fleabane – Erigeron acris

Silverleaf phacelia – Phacelia hastata

Western featherbells – Anticlea occidentalis

and many others…