Snowgrass Flat, Old Snowy Mountain - Elk Pass & Goat Lake — Friday, Jul. 25, 2025

This weekend a group of four decided to check out Goat Rocks Wilderness for our "highlight backpacking weekend" of the summer. We hadn't been to this area but knew about it and the coveted nature. Now is the time to go! The weather was wondrous, warm during the day and chilly but not cold at night, the flowers are utterly in peak bloom, and we even ate some huckleberries on the lower trails.

Friday we started at Berry Patch Trailhead. We hiked up the alternate route to check out the old Goat Ridge lookout ruins (didn't add much additional trail length), and proceeded to Goat Lake. Utterly crowded but we got there early enough to secure a relatively decent campsite. Note that for many, there really isn't any place to relieve oneself in private without walking away from the basin. It is pretty surprising there aren't any toilets given the number of people that overnight at the lake. Since it didn't take very long to get to the lake, we spent a couple hours napping and some of us plunged in the lake. After a rest, the group did a small excursion hike off-trail to see if we could do a ridge hike (alternative route) to Hawkeye. This was a huge failure as the north side of the basin wall is all vertical and would require intensive gear to overcome. We made it back to camp and a couple of us decided to call it a day for the hiking, and a couple of us went up to Hawkeye Point--a reasonable trail with gorgeous views. No goat sightings but we did see some goat sighters--looking to survey the goat population in the mountains.

The lake basin gets dark relatively early as the sun sets directly behind the basin wall, so we didn't find ourselves staying up too late, though plenty of others in the area chatted loudly as we went to bed. So it goes. Still a beautiful place to spend half a day and wake up to.

Our plan for the second day: get to Snowgrass Flat and set up camp before doing Old Snowy. We got up early enough and hiked the 2.3 miles to the Flat and determined that while the meadows are beautiful and the campsites were available, getting to higher ground would offer more views and probably reprieve from any July mosquitoes. We hiked up the PCT toward the trail that leads to Old Snowy and eventually found a stream that was still running (and double the flow at the end of the day!). We found an outcropping that had a combination of rock, meadow, and trees that had a full panoramic view of Old Snowy and neighboring peaks, as well as Goat Lake, Hawkeye, Adams and surrounding areas, Helens, and a sliver of Tahoma. It was a perfect site.

After setting up camp, it was still only the early afternoon, so we once again spent a couple hours napping and resting before determining it was time to do the dayhike up to Old Snowy. Old Snowy looks intimidating from below, but the trail is actually in incredible shape. After diverging from the PCT, it's a steep but steady and stable trail up to the rock tower at the top. The top 100 feet of vertical gain is scrambling, but it never felt sketchy to me (though others in the group had varying degrees of comfort). The pathway is well marked to get to the summit, and we found ourselves in delightful company with a handful of other summiters when we got there. The 360 views from the top of Old Snowy are hard to beat.

After getting back down to the knife edge intersection, we proceeded to take the knife edge downward toward the main PCT trail (heading to Elk Pass). At the end of the near-flat section, one of the group decided to turn back, not wanting to deal with the snowfields below. We plodded along and made it to the bottom / intersection with the PCT. Another group member wanted to turn around there, feeling their capacity calling. Me and the final group member decided to walk halfway across the ridge toward Elk Pass to "the green knob" that was very visible in the distance. We wanted to see Packwood Lake (if possible) and a view of the rest of the Goat Rocks peaks. This was a fantastic up and down ridge trail that wasn't very difficult and afforded nice solitude.

The hike back along the PCT and snowfields was steady. The snowfields were mostly OK even without poles, though if the snow was any more melted, it might be a bit troublesome. We found our way back to camp and had a fantastic 360 degree sunset view of all the mountains. It was a lovely evening and we found that the extended access to sunlight from this site kept us awake slightly later than our night at Goat Lake.

Our trek back out was incredibly easy and fast (6.5 or so miles that we finished at a steady pace with only a couple brief water stops, completing it in under 3 hours). We took the snowgrass trail all the way back to Berry Patch, thus completing the full loop. There were plenty of people hiking out and yet most of the time we were hiking in the serenity of the forest on our own.

Getting back to the car, everything was coated in dust and the Sunday drive back to Packwood was a slow caravan of cars. The road gets incredibly dusty and visibility is low, so be warned and slow down for safety. We stopped at Packwood Brewing, which has decent beer of many styles (including a wide variety of German offerings), and a small, mildly OK food menu. The ice cream in the airstream next door was a nice bonus.

Overall this was a great introduction to Goat Rocks. There are a few additional trails that we encountered that might take us back some day, but for we remain satisfied!

Here were some of the hiking times if anyone is curious:

Friday

• 920am start at Berry Patch Trailhead
• 1030am arrived to Goat Ridge Lookout ruins
• 105pm arrived to Goat Lake
• 445pm departed camp for Hawkeye
• 5pm departed Hawkeye for camp, some exploration
• 715pm arrived back to camp

Saturday

• 915am departed Goat Lake for Snowgrass Flats
• 1135am arrived to our camp
• 230pm departed for Old Snowy
• 325pm arrived to the summit of Old Snowy
• 550pm arrived back to camp via knife edge

Sunday

• Hike from our camp back to Berry Patch Trailhead: 845am-1125am