Goat Mountain — Monday, May. 13, 2019

I thought I might be able to make it to the 5,500' shoulder of Goat Mountain, and I did.  The weather was sunny.  The temperature was 45 degrees F. on the way up and 50 degrees F. coming down: Perfect.  The sunshine was filtered while I was on the shoulder, but became bright again after I left.  Go figure.  I did not see any other hikers all day.

The trail is nearly unobstructed (a few step-over blowdowns) until the last mile where patchy snow and tree limbs combine to challenge your progress.  There are also some wet, muddy areas in this section.  The final half mile of the journey to the shoulder is all snow, but the snow route is easier than the summer route through all of the rocks on the final part of the trail.

I had waterproof boots, microspikes, gaiters, and trekking poles.  I needed all of them.  The snow is consolidated, so there was no need for snowshoes.

I found a patch of dozens of Calypso Orchids at mile 2.1, and I found a nice patch Avalanche Lilies just before reaching the meadow.  I also found a group of a dozen Trillium and was able to get a "real" picture instead of just one puny plant and bloom.

The views of Sefrit, Shuksan, Baker, Goat, etc. are good.  I inserted a telephoto shot of Price Lake into the picture of Shuksan.  The lake looks amazing right now.

There were two sets of tracks to the shoulder.  I'm pleased that my tracks are the third set.  There were no tracks beyond the shoulder: Too early.