Goat Lake — Sunday, Jul. 26, 2015

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

First, the road- After getting on Mountain Loop Rd, the trail head is exactly 33 miles. Once you hit the gravel road, it was a bit rough. I took my small Chevy Sonic and had to go very slow because of all of the potholes. I scrapped a couple of times, but it was passable enough if you take your time. Second, I know that the description say to possibly take the one trail to Goat lake and the other trail back. We did this, I would not recommend unless you really want an easier hike back and nothing to look at. There were no waterfalls. Some berries, but no bleeding heart flowers. Just woods, but the way back seemed to take forever! The beginning of the trail was easy and flat, we came to a well marked sign to take the Upper Elliot Trail or Lower. I took the advice of another reviewer and started out with the lower trail. It was beautiful. Walking along side of the river was wonderful. We ventured off the path and went down close to the river and took some great photos. The sign for Goat Lake was clearly marked, and we kept going. Once we got to tree stump/downed tree, we had two options, left or right. The WTA description said it was "side trip worth taking", they were not wrong. After climbing over the downed trees (there were not many at all) we came to the beautiful waterfall. We climbed the side of the "trail" and were rewarded. The water was low, so we were luck enough to be able to walk out on the rocks and see the waterfalls straight on. Take some time and explore the lower area of the falls as well as the upper area. After our exploring at the falls, we went back to the stump and went up towards the lake. From there, it took us about an hour or so to get to the lake, because once we got higher up, we took another detour to see the very top of the waterfall. Once we were at the lake, it was gorgeous. This would have been great on one of the hot days we had a few weeks prior. Swimming in the lake would have been a must! If you go on a hot day. Take a suit. On the way back down we decided to take the Upper Elliot Trail. Nothing to see there. I say skip it, however, that hike was an easier flatter hike. It just seemed to take a very long time. This was a really good trail because there would be difficult climbs, easy walks, difficult climbs, so it was not all grueling and you were able to get breaks in between. On the way up, we saw in total maybe 15-20 other hikers. This was a very rainy day. Two people had dogs. Once group had kids about age 10-12. I would recommend this hike in a heartbeat and I will be going back on a nicer day to take advantage of the lake. I wish I could add more than four pictures.