Goat Lake



We got another weekend of backpacking in the books! Originally we were planning on doing a hike up near Mt. Baker...the same one we tried to do a few months ago, but this time we ran into an issue of there being thunderstorms up north the weekend we were looking at going. I kept watching the weather as it got closer to the weekend, and finally decided to go for a backup plan of going south and doing a hike in the Goat Rocks Wilderness. We packed 5 of us and the dog in our new Jeep (if you haven't heard, we bought our first car a few weeks ago, a new Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk), with the help of a friends car top carrier that stowed most of our gear. 3+ hours later we were ready to start our hike. We decided on a loop route that connected a few different trails. On the way in we went up and followed along Goat Ridge with amazing sweeping views of the valleys and in your face views of Mt Rainier and Mt Adams.












About 4-5 hours later we made it to the lake. It's been really dry lately so unfortunately most of the creeks in the area were pretty dried up and the only reliable source of water was the lake. Had we had a little more time, we would have tried to find a camp site a little further away from the lake and near a stream, but we took what we could get and settled in with all the other people who had made it to the lake that night. It was a beautiful lake though! We set up our tents, had some supper, and hung out for a few before calling it a night and returning to the warmth of our tents/sleeping bags.










Sunday morning we got moving as the sun came up and got our breakfast on before packing up and heading back down through the Snowgrass flats. Maybe I'm just easily amused, but I thought both routes were amazingly beautiful! That whole area is great and I'll definitely be back for more hikes!






On the way out we were famished from all our hiking, so we stopped at a little place claiming to have the best burgers in the tiny city of Packwood. We didn't have the highest expectations for such a small city, but they were spot on! Best burger I've had in a long time! And delicious milkshakes too ;)