I spent the weekend of July 20th & 21st exploring the Goat Rocks and scrambling to the summits of Old Snowy and Ives Peak. I was there with a group of six other people from the mountaineering club BOEALPS. The Goat Rocks are south-east of Mount Rainier. The drive to the Snowgrass trailhead is 3+ hours so Saturday morning we made an alpine start from Seattle at 4am. We were on the trail by 7:30am. An early start was good for multiple reasons, but the biggest one was that the high in the nearby town of Packwood was forecast to be 100 °F, so we wanted to gain altitude and cooler temperatures before the heat of the day hit. The Goat Rocks live up to the hype, it was a beautiful hike up to the Snowgrass Flat and then on to a section of the Pacific Crest Trail. The alpine meadows were in full bloom and covered with wildflowers. From the Goat Rocks you normally should have stunning views of Mounts Rainier, Adams, and St. Helens. The only disappointment for the weekend was that by noon on Saturday smoke from wildfires obscured our views of the mountains; for the rest of the weekend we only had intermittent views of Rainier and Adams and the most we ever saw of St. Helens was a dark smudge through the smoke. We summited Old Snowy at 1:45pm and Ives Peak at 4pm. Both summits required 3rd class scrambling. There was a lot of loose rock on both, so helmets are advised. We were back in camp by 7pm.
It was a warm night on Saturday. Sunday the weather started cooling off dramatically. We even got sprinkled on intermittently, but the rain held off. One member of our group hiked the Pacific Crest Trail last year and recommended the trail out to Elk Pass for the views. So, before our hike back to the trailhead we did an out-and-back hike to Elk Pass which rewarded us with vistas of the Goat Rocks Wilderness area that we could not see from the Snowgrass side. After Elk Pass we took Goat Ridge trail back to the Snowgrass trailhead, passing Goat Lake on the way. The Goat Ridge trail actually takes you to the Berry Patch trailhead, but there is a short connector trail that leads back to the Snowgrass trailhead. After the outing we went to Packwood Brewing for beer & brats. Great weekend, I highly recommend the Goat Rocks!
Although the area is called the Goat Rocks, we never saw any mountain goats. I called the ranger station when planning the trip and they cautioned that I would be unlikely to see mountain goats. On the trail to Elk Pass we did see goat droppings and foot prints in the snow, so they are there, but they were not showing themselves. Dogs and horses are allowed in the Goat Rocks Wilderness and the Snowgrass area is the most popular part of the Wilderness area. My guess is that the goats avoid that area in favor of less visited areas of the Wilderness.
I definitely recommend an early start for the first day in the Goat Rocks if your plan is to scramble up Old Snowy and Ives Peak. It allowed us to tag both summits, while still getting back to camp by dinner time. If you go earlier in the season or in cooler weather, you might want to bring micro-spikes. None of us brought micro-spikes, but there were a couple sections of snowfields we had to cross that would have been tricky on firmer snow. I also recommend trail runner style gaiters. I was wearing low-top Merrell Moab shoes without gaiters; on the Old Snowy-Ives traverse I frequently had to take my shoes off to empty out sand and pebbles. From highway 12, it’s sixteen miles of forest service gravel roads to the Snowgrass trailhead. By the standards of forest service roads, they are in very good shape, but they are still gravel roads. So, there were multiple sections of washboard road and a few potholes.
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