Just did 3 days out on American ridge. Started from Goose prairie trail instead of our initially planned start at the end of FS1800, almost the other end of Bumping Lake. The FS road is in pretty bad shape and our drop off car was too low to go all the way.
The climb up on Goose prairie trail was fine. Few trees down and across the trail but nothing too hard. When we hit American ridge, we headed south for about 1.5 miles and decided to set camp there rather than hiking down the bowl and to the small lake. We did go get some water at the lake. Mosquitoes were plentiful. We had amazing views of Mount Adams and Rainier that evening.
next morning we intended to follow the American ridge to the west, towards Rainier. We walked by the small lake and then lost the trail several times until We could not find our way out of the bowl, in a safe way. We turned around, walk back up to the ridge and headed straight north e1st towards Goat peak. Trying to stay on the trail was challenging. The recent fires have swept away the trail, there is still lot of ashes, and all trees are burned. Not a pretty sight but you have to walk through this to get to Goat peak. We ended up sleeping on the ridge for day 2... amazing views of Rainier, Adams and Bumping lake. That day was challenging no water available while hiking the ridge. We are to ration ourselves. Plan accordingly.
Day 3 we simply hiked down by Goat Creek Trail... well marked and a smooth time.
The American ridge would have been great if we had been able to follow the trail consistently. We had to re adjust our path as we kept losing the faint traces of the trail.
Sunset and sunrise views were great.
We did not cross anyone while on this hike.
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