Goat Mountain — Friday, Jun. 27, 2003

North Cascades > Mount Baker Area

A beautiful sunny and hot day for our first hike of the season. The traihead was a long 3 hr away from seattle, so we actually started the hike near 2pm. The parking lot was almost full. Long switchbacks in the forest was a bit boring, but at least the shade was helpful. We got glimpse of Mt. Shuksan along the way. Two hours later we reached the meadows. The view to Shuksan and Baker was very nice. Bright sun rays was coming from the south so it was difficult to take a good picture. There were some bugs but not too serious yet. No snow (at least none to where we stopped) and a bit of muddy at a couple of spots. It took us 1.5 hr to get down. Then we were off to dinner in Vancouver.