Iron goat Trail: Wellington trailhead to Windy Point (and return)
Beautiful hike for a beautiful day! Did this hike with my son who really enjoys history and wanted something beyond just mountains and waterfalls (!) and this delivered. The story is very sad-worst railway disaster in US history, -but the trail through the remaining concrete snow shed and by the tunnels and other remaining artifacts is very cool (literally and figuratively). Plus we saw so many beautiful wildflowers and hundreds of butterflies, but no mosquitos or biting flies or other annoying bugs. Many little waterfalls over the remaining concrete structures. We have done this section before, and remembered it being pretty easy as it follows the railroad grade and is pretty flat. That part is still true. However, after you leave the snow shed area and start heading towards Windy Point, the meadow-y portions of the trail are very overgrown in places, with nettles, Devil’s Cane, and either Giant Hogweed or Cow Parsnip growing right along or over the trail, making it more like bushwhacking than hiking at some points. We have many little skin stings tonight, and my son thought he got some Hogweed sap on his skin but so far it doesn’t seem too bad. However, it was still very worthwhile and the view from Windy Point is awesome.
We also had not caught the WTA warning that the privies at the trailhead were closed and were expecting them to be open which caused some problems.
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