The original plan was to leave a car at the Green River Horse Camp, and walk the full loop clockwise: First heading west on the Green River, going up to the Ridge, camping at Vanson Lake. Then heading east on the Ridge passing Deadman lake and Goat Mountain to close the loop.

The Green River Horse camp had two trail, one unmarked heading south and immediately crossing the Green River into a sand bar on the other side that led nowhere. There other was marked as 213 Horse trail heading west. We did not know if this was the 213 trail on our map or some horse fording trail. We follow it and it matched our GPS track, heading along the river on its north side, so we continued. The trail did not seem to get much use. After about 1/2 mile it was completely washed out. The river bank ate it up. We tried to find our way through the brush in several spot to see if we can find where it continues, but no luck. It was a steep drop to the river bank and we didn't want to go in the river to look for the trail downstream.

Note that the FS web site says trail 213 is open. I even called the ranger station at Randle to confirm and they said it was open. They were wrong.

We went back to our cars. Luckily we ran into some campers at the camp site, and they told us about the option to drive further down (west) on FS 2612 and take a left turn to find where the road meets trail 213 again. We did just that. Since it was already late in the day, we decided to leave one car at the Goat Mountain trailhead, and one where FS 2612 crosses the trail again, and do a short car shuttle but still do almost the full loop. See attached map with GPS track. I recommend doing the same if you have two cars.

The trail down the Green River is overgrown with bushes. In one place the Salmonberry bushes went above our head. Good thing I had long pants because others with short pants got scratched. Other than that it's mostly easy to follow the trail, and the last section with big trees is beautiful.

We camped at Vanson lake and went up to Vanson peak that evening. And again in the morning. The trail along the ridge heading East to Deadman Lake, Goat Mountain and beyond is in good shape (trail #217). The last exposed part is magnificent! Wildflowers are out. We saw 3 Elk down the valley north of the ridge. Views of Rainier, Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood and St. Helens.

I recommend doing the loop clockwise like we did so views get better toward the end. Make sure you do this on a sunny day.

Overall other than the washed out trail, had a great weekend. See link to my full photo album below.

Completed the loop as described in the Backpacking Washington guidebook. I elected to do the hike as a 3 night trip to maximize time at the lakes and tarns. This is a real adventure!

According to the USFS website, there is still a road washout on Forest Road 26. However, you can drive to the Green River Horse Camp trailhead from FR 26 coming from the south. There is a Road Closed sign just north of the turnoff to 2612 from 26 as there is still a washout on the north end, so it is not accessible from that side until the road is repaired. But the red warning sign on the Goat Mountain page on the WTA website ("6/1/17: trail inaccessible; road washout") is NOT accurate - you just have to take the route from FR 99 to 26 north, past Ryan Lake, to get there.

The descriptions in the book are mostly accurate and camping spots are in the places they are reported. However GPS or equivalent smartphone app is highly recommended as at least one trailheads is challenging to find and there are multiple places where the trail has been rerouted from the Topo map.

Vanson Lake and Deadman's lake are both gorgeous, accessible, very tranquil and quiet in September.

One major concern: there is a trail washout very early into the hike from the Green River Horse Camp west on 213 just as it crosses over into private land. It is possible that there is a reroute further back the trail; I didn't backtrack to see but it certainly wasn't evident or marked. As of this writing, the washout is 10-15 deep gully about 20 feet across. It is not passable. I was able to track north about 300 feet by doing so hiked around the gully but this required pushing through deep brush and over a number of downed trees in wet, slippery conditions. It's really hazardous and I've written USFS to see if it can be addressed. There are other places where brief off-trail rerouting is necessary but none are what I would consider a hazard.

Expect patches of snow this time of year on the 217 side especially if heading up to Vanson Peak. Daytime highs were in the upper 50s and night temperatures dropped to freezing on Goat Mountain.

Good berry picking on 217, which is much better kept than 213. My mileage for the loop was 25 miles, including the short hike up to Vanson Peak and back. There is AT&T cell service on Vanson Peak but none elsewhere on the trail.

Tried to do green river for a backpacking trip with the kids but fr-26 is completely washed out about 7 miles in and not passable. A swath of the road for 20-30 feet is completely gone

We chose this warm, sunny March Friday to hike from Ryan Lake up the 213 trail to the Strawberry Mountain trail, 220. We did not make it to the top as the trail is not in good shape, transitioning from trail to old road to trail to old road. In one place, we even lost the trail for a bit. The upper part of the trail is losing tread, reducing the trail to about 8 inches wide and tilted. There is also some stream damage on the upper trail. The views, however, are amazing, with Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Whittier, Goat Mt., the Green River Valley and Ryan Lake spread out around us. The trail is somewhat steep, and an easier way to this area is on the Strawberry Mt. trail from where it crosses the 2516 road. A good early season warmup hike

Got a late start on Friday afternoon to start a three day, two night 20 mile loop starting at the Green River Horse Camp. All of the trails showed signs of being used by horses, some poop and flies, but we never saw an actual horse. The Green River Trail and Vanson Peak trail appear to be lightly used and a little overgrown in some places, but still easy to follow. Camped the first night on the Green River as night was closing in. Trail was dry and fresh water was available from the river On the second day we trekked up to Vanson Peak using the "easy way" by going past the turn off to Vanson Lake and doubling back to hike a half mile up to the summit. The "easy way" was still quite steep. Though there were multiple small streams crossing the path on the hike up, we barely got the soles of our boots wet in crossing, I imagine the water is much higher earlier in the season. Beyond the Peak there is no water, much to our dismay, so make sure you carry enough to get you to your destination. Spent our second night at Deadman's lake. Water was clear and warm, perfect for swimming. There were some large flies, I assume because of the horses, but virtually no biting insects! Plenty of lakefront campsites on the sunny side of the lake, we shared the water with 4 other groups after not having seen a soul all day. I assume they came in via the shorter Goat Mountain trail. Still, plenty of space between campsites so they weren't intrusive. Third day we headed out on the final leg of our journey over the Goat Mountain trail. There's a steep uphill to start right beyond the lake, which was hard on our tired legs, but beyond that it's fairly flat with some amazing views. Huckleberries and strawberries were all ripe along the ridge and wildflowers were in bloom. After hiking along the ridge there is a punishing descent back to the trailhead. First part of the descent is along forested, steep, dirt switchbacks, the final part is quite dusty with loose gravel. I can't imagine hiking up that part of the trail, given how slippery it was. Goat Mountain trail clearly gets significantly more traffic than Green River or Vanson Peak. If I were to do this hike again I would park my car at the Goat Mountain trailhead parking lot and hike the mile down to the Green River trailhead at the horsecamp at the beginning, rather than at the end when your legs are already shot.