Trails for everyone, forever

Home Go Hiking Trip Reports Goat Lake

Trip Report

Goat Lake — Saturday, Jul. 6, 2019

South Cascades > Goat Rocks

Road getting there is in pretty good shape.  Driving a truck or high clearance vehicle, no problem.  Car or lower clearance, still not problem but may have to take it a bit slower.

Mosquitoes are real bad at the lower elevation, but once you start climbing they disappear.

Started out at the Berry Patch parking area and left out on Trail #95 versus parking in the Snowgrass and taking Trail #96 up.  There were maps of the area at the trailhead provided by the Forest Service which was fantastic as this area for Green Trails maps are hard to find.  Going up 95 is probably the more challenging climb on this loop as you gain the 2,200 feet in the 5.5 miles to the lake.  The views are well worth the climb though especially along Goat Ridge coming into Jordan Basin. Once to the top of Jordan Basin we caught Trail #86 (Lilly) over to Goat Lake along the ridgeline.  There were some snow patches that we had to watch our footing on, but nothing was impassible.  We at a late lunch at Goat Lake and then continued on #86 across the ridgeline where we enjoyed some great views of the waterfalls along with the occasional glimpse of Mt. Adams through the clouds.  We eventually joined back with Trail #96 and made our way into Snowgrass Flat and the "long" stroll down back to the Berry Patch parking area staying on Trail #96 (there is a fork that indicates "Hikers Trail #96A to the left and Stock to take Trail #96 to the right). 

Total loop according to my Garmin was 13.2 back to the truck.  Would definitely recommend this as an overnighter as there are plenty of campsites along the way and so many trails to link up and do day hikes.  The majority of people we came across were smarter than us and doing just that.

Did you find this trip report helpful?

Comments