Goat Lake (North Cascades)

Early rise, and near solitude on a very busy trail! Even though we left "late," the Mother's Day festivities of others must of made the hordes arrive late. Arriving at the parking lot and only having 2 other cars present was surprising! Mia was geared up, and along we went.

Taking the Lower Elliott Creek Trail at the first split we began meandering up the trail. Shortly after a small decrease in elevation, you get down to the creek and slowly climb up the drainage. After climbing up and away from the creek you intersect with the Upper Elliott Creek trail and start to walk a flat stretch of old road bed (which the Upper trail follows the whole time...). After meandering on this flat bench for awhile you will start in on the majority of the elevation gain towards the lake.

You cross a small creek just before the few gentle switchbacks begin. There is one section that almost appears that the trail is going straight toward the creek passing a big root-ball. The trail actually switchbacks left, while going straight you can go off trail over some windfall to the creek. This really would only come into play if you are have a bad sense of direction, or aren't paying attention as you are walking. There is a mini-cairn next to the stump as well. On the way to the next switchback you cross the open avalanche run out and get a view to the mountains across the valley. The second switchback has a small cascade down a granite slide, giving a view up towards the mountain north of the lake. At the next left switchback there is a slight flat area, if you go off trail to the right instead of switch backing left with the trail you can find a trail down to the outlet falls. After the outlet falls view area, you are pretty much at the lake.

Staying right at the camp junction we continued alongside the lake and passed the only other person we saw other than the trail runner on his way back to the car. From this point you are passing through brushy avalanche run outs and a few windfalls on your way out to the falls on the far side of the lake. We had lunch with a view of the falls and headed back.

Up and to this point we pretty much had the most amazing views completely to ourselves. On the way back I joked with Lyss about how it would be a mob when we got back to where the trail meets the lake. About halfway back to the main trail and past the big down trees in true northwest fashion every little opening by the lake had hoards of people. To include one group of 20 plus...

From here we headed back down the Lower Elliot trail to the car. Another beautiful day on the trail, and surprisingly quiet on the way up!

The camp at the lake is kind of a free for all, with an open privy tucked away in the back. If you can find a flat spot big enough for your tent you can camp... There's spots up the hill and through the trees, even a few that have a view of the privy... I've camped at this camp once, and it wouldn't be a bad place to do one of your first backpacking trips without the help of someone experienced with you, or taking someone that doesn't want to walk more than 5 miles to camp. You are close enough to the car, so it's an easy hike downhill back to the car. The time I camped here some people had cast iron pans, bacon, eggs and were boasting about how heavy their packs were coming up the hill...

Goat Lake, Henry M. Jackson Wilderness

After a month of stress and multiple intense projects for my Evolutionary Biology course, multiple vehicular breakdowns and the surmounting stress of a 3 quarter cumulative chemistry final, we finally got out for the first weekend of summer without the looming stress of homework. The date had been set in stone for months, while we waited out the weather and followed the snow melt to determine where we would ultimately go. I finally decided on Goat Lake after thumbing through a few trip reports and a couple guide books, for the scenery, the easy to moderate hike, short enough distance for Heather, and the fact that there was a lake that I could slap the water around while I relearned how to fly fish.

We headed to the Goat Lake parking lot on friday hoping that it wouldn't be as crowded on friday as the last weekend's report on the nwhikers forum, which mentioned that people were parking almost a half mile from the trail head on Saturday... We arrived and the parking lot was full but we were the first to have to pull off the side of the road. We headed up the trail and opted for the Upper Elliot Creek Trail instead of the Lower Elliot Creek trail to head to the Lake. The upper trail is an old logging road, so I figured for the trip up it would be easiest for Heather. The old logging road held a slight but steady uphill climb about 80% of the 3.5 miles, till about the junction with the lower trail. The constant uphill climb was probably actually worse for Heather. It wasn't at a total loss as there were several really good views from the higher "road" and a nice waterfall.

Sporting the new pack at the trailhead loaded with the 2 person tarptent, my large pot and the canister stove for cooking for 2, and enough food for 2 people. After filling this pack, the realization that with a solo cookpot, a solo tarp, and a bivy I will be able to stretch this pack out for week long section hikes.



Upper trail pictures



















At approximately 3.6 miles per the green trails map (No. 111), the lower trail met up with the upper and we continued on the last 1.6 miles to the Lake. Roughly half way through the 1.6 miles the trail starts to climb at a lot steeper grade than the slight grade up the "road". The trail also starts getting closer and closer to the outlet stream for Goat Lake. At the 3rd switchback there is an offshoot trail over and under some down logs and across a short precarious shelf to get right along side the large, and presently raging falls coming out of Goat Lake. After I took the short side trip we rounded the last of the switchbacks as the trail reached the top of the falls and the lake became visible. We took the left split to the camping sites to select and claim a campsite. Talk about an interesting camping area... A mad house in the trees... Find something flat and throw the tent down before someone comes along and steals that flat piece of ground... After setting up camp, "hanging" the new Ursack I assembled my fly pole, threw some aquasocks on and we headed down to the lake. There was a huge log dam at the mouth of the lake where I headed out to snag some logs. Which is also where I found a huge batch of bacterial growth being filtered at the logs... I couldn't stand the smell so I went around to shore and headed down the northern shore to begin slapping the water with my fly line.











around the lake










relearning how to do the roll cast for when you don't have a backblast area to do normal fly casting.


















Enters the Soapbox...
After day one was over as we thought... We got the "newb" backpacker party pitching camp 15 feet from our tent with 4 or 5 tents at dusk... Nothing like some loud pot heads that have zero courtesy lighting up and hearing them brag about how much they carried in, how heavy their tents were... Full cans of chili and probably the whole jar of Sketti sauce for their sketti. Their bacon and eggs did smell good in the morning though... Did I complain about their camp ettiqute? cooking about 30 feet from our camp directly inside their campsite, I'm pretty sure they didn't hang their food, have a bear can, or a Ursack... To top it off campfires were not permitted along this trail and they started one up to go along with their bowls and loud ruckus... How I wish I would of packed my ear plugs... The main reason I could see for the forest service to not allow campfires in this area is that the whole forest was a thick duff of pine needles and twigs, guess what happens when you light a fire in that kind of a base... haha the fire spreads deep into the duff... Anyways... they just had a serious lack of respect in my opinion and that's what set me off on this soap box, I could care less about each of the specific individual things, but the combo of a multitude of things was plain aggitating...
Steps off Soapbox.



Any who, Day 2 I headed out for some more practice casting along the south side of the lake where I could get some room to throw a backcast. I recovered a lot of my casting form back and a little bit of my presentation back. I need practice and I need to read up on some techniques for lake fishing with fly poles, I really have only been creek and river fishing with flies... I ran into several small groups near the lake and in camp that had questions about the UL backpacking methods and gear. I tried to answer, show and tell as much as possible and referance off a lot of places for them to get a good start on further research. On the way out on Day 2 we took the lower Elliot creek trail back. It was more of an actual trail through the forest, without the feeling of being a road. Taking both the trail options to and from gave it kind of a loop trail feeling and not just that odd out and back with the same scenary but different feeling. About a mile from the trailhead the light showers kicked in and we just pressed on through to the trailhead. We were wearing quickdry clothes and didn't really care about a little dampness since it wasn't pouring and we were below the tree's canopy. After Reaching the truck, the line of vehicles lining the road was astonishing! We had to back up forever down the road till we finally were able to find a place to turn around. Note to self... Stay away on the weekends, the day hikers will kill you and the parking sucks... The views are great at the lake, and there was waterfalls everywhere with all the snow melting. Overall the trip was excellent and my newly modified Ion will now be my go to pack. I might be making another one for Heather since she tried it on and carried a lot more comfortably than her pack supposedly... So I'm in the market for a small or medium gray/black 2008 or older Golite Ion, Got one for sale at a resonably cheap price?

Day 2 shots,