Goat Mountain — Saturday, Jul. 30, 2022

A friend and I hiked the maintained Goat Mountain trail with the idea of at least considering the additional 1,000 ft push to the West peak summit. Ultimately, we made it to about 5700’ before turning around. On a nice (albeit hot) Saturday in July we saw maybe a dozen other people the whole time.

The maintained trail is in lovely shape, no complaints other than the bugs. Highly recommend a long sleeve sunshirt. It was much more helpful than spray, which seemed to do little. Definitely worth sticking it out regardless for the phenomenal views of Mount Baker, Shuksan, and other nearby peaks.

Past the viewpoint around 5100’ the maintained trail ends, but there’s still a very clear path for awhile. We decided to give that a go, and found our first little patches of snow. Very minor, you could even go around them if you wanted. I can’t imagine they’ll last more than another couple days. This part of the hike continues the great views and wildflowers that you start to experience around the end of the main trail.

The problem was, at 5700’ the clear path takes you to a choice—proceed to bushwhack through overgrowth on the side hill traverse (the route Gaia showed) or go straight up loose dirt / rock and risk a backward fall that could last hundreds of feet. Since it was hot and we were already pretty chewed up by the bugs, we chose neither and this was where our hike ended. If I had to choose one, I think I would have chosen the side hill.

Hope that helps somebody! Happy hiking!