This less-traveled trail to Goat Peak is the longer and steeper approach, as opposed to the one on Hwy 410 by Hells Crossing. The mileage on All Trails is off by 0.7 of a mile (it is more like 10.1).

The trail is a steady uphill climb with a few flat spots. There are switchbacks at the beginning, before the American Ridge junction, and again on the approach to Goat Peak.

The weather was cool today, so it was perfect for this longer hike. My husband and I saw 1 deer, and spooked a wild turkey. We started up at 7:30 in the morning and finished at 1:30 pm. We only spent about 10 at the top. There are a few wildflowers in bloom. The views at the top are spectacular-- you can see both Bumping Lake and Pleasant Valley as well as Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier.

We climbed Goat Peak from the Goat Creek trailhead. The trail was a consistent uphill the entire way and well-maintained. There was quite a bit of deadfall over the trail, adding a small adventure in places. About halfway to the ridge, a small creek crossed the trail and ran along it briefly, turning the trail into a mud pit. This was the only water source and not a great one—bring all the water you'll need, especially because this one won't last all season.

Intermittent snow started as we neared the junction with American Ridge. By midday it was fairly soft and we postholed more than once. Luckily, the snow was inconsistent the whole way and was never more than a nuisance.

The American Ridge trail is slightly less well-maintained and more aggressively graded, but offers open views in two directions. The actual summit is a short scramble above the trail. Although the summit was once home to a fire lookout, we did not find any evidence of the historical building. We did find a summit log and registered ourselves!

I recorded a total distance of 9.3 miles out and back, which agrees with WTA's posted mileage but not with our guidebook!

Ascended from the south, there is a trailhead across from Cougar Flats Campground that is named Goat Creek here on WTA. My GPS had this at 9.6 total miles staying on American Ridge Trail near the summit. Snow patches start at about 4,800 ft on the south trail, with the final ~1.5 miles of the trail fully covered in snow. Route finding was pretty easy for this early in the season, there's only 1 or 2 snow fields and a single switch back where you can miss where the trail picks up. Post-holing wasn't too bad, but it's the time of year to expect it.

Still rather cold at the summit, I didn't stay long with my fingers freezing. Fun hike, I bet the views are amazing on a clear day.

Fantastic snowshoe trip up to Goat Peak today with ngie! We started from the Goat Creek trailhead off of the Bumping River Road across from Cougar Flats Campground. There is still a snow berm across the parking lot, but we were able to park completely off the Bumping Lake road. The first part of the trail was submerged under the melting snow, and the snow was super soft, so put on snowshoes for the first part. Once we got up about 100 vertical feet, most of the trail was snow free, so we stowed the snowshoes, and were able to hike up to 4400ft, before we ran into continuous snow, where we put snowshoes on, and I left them on all the way to the summit.

Up at 6000ft we ran into some super steep terrain. Ngie put on crampons and took out their ice axe for this part. I didn't have my ice axe with me or crampons, so I just went up the super steep slope with snowshoes. Up at 6230ft we got to the top of a sub peak, and had to do some scrambling, along with some tricky down scrambling to get to the saddle between Goat Peak, and this sub peak. After this, it was a steep snowshoe up to the summit. Some awesome views from the summit. The top of Mt Rainier was in the clouds along with Mount Aix, but we were able to see so many other peaks, along with Bumping Lake. It was a bit windy on the summit, so we didn't linger long.

Coming down the super steep slope was a bit tricky with snowshoes, but we made it down without slipping. We pretty much took our same route down, finishing at 6:10pm. Excellent trip!! 8.9 miles with 3707 ft elevation gain

I hiked Goat Peak trail off of the Bumping River Road across from Cougar Flats Campground on Monday, August 14. Started at 9:10am and attained the summit at 12:00. Very few bugs along the trail and unfortunately less wildlife, the butterflies were enjoyable. A very few huckleberries around 4600'.  A dozen or so deadfalls across the trail but all are manageable. As previously reported, the creek at just over 2 miles in is still running, Chipmunk Creek, I believe. That is the only water on the trail!

Great views from the summit along with a lot of ants and flying ants. My dad was a lookout here 80 years ago!! All in all, a very enjoyable hike!