Despite the forecast for rain on Friday, a friend and I headed out Thursday (Juneteenth) for an overnight at Goat Lake. Given that it was a sunny weekday holiday the trail was very busy with day hikers but not overrun with backpackers, I imagine on a normal weekday this is a relatively quiet hike.
Trailhead: We arrived at the trailhead around 11:15 and there were cars parked along the forest service road for about 0.25 miles from the trailhead I would guess. I drove up to the trailhead and was able to snag one of two spots in the lot. One of the benefits to being in the second wave of hikers, we caught a spot from people that got their early and were already on their way out. The trailhead lot is rather small with room for maybe 10-15 cars. I'm sure that this trailhead is even harder to snag a spot in during the weekends.
Trail: We took the Lower Elliot Trail on the hike in and made it to the camping area after approximately 4.6 miles. We picked a site, setup camp, and headed out along the lakeshore trail to get views of Goat Lake and North Cadet Peak. The lakeshore trail gets pretty overgrown after about 0.5 miles and we turned around to have lunch at one of the rocky shoreline spots we had passed. The next morning, we opted to take the Upper Elliot Trail on the hike out because I find it be a lot cruisier for a quick downhill pace, however, it is longer by about 1 mile.
Camping: The camping area was quite a bit larger than I recalled and when we arrived around 2:00 there were only 7 other tents.The camping area has 3 pit toilets, remember to pack out your TP though! We brought a bear bag and had quite the adventure getting a bear hang, there are hardly any suitable branches within reason on any of the trees. If I went back I would opt to bring a bear can simply out of connivence.
When we arrived back at the trailhead around 11:00 there were 3 cars with busted out windows that had been broken into, luckily our car wasn't hit. But a warning for other people planning to head up that way, consider leaving your doors unlocked and don't leave any valuables in the car!
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