Picture of the week ~ Whatcom Falls Park ferns

Looking down from the bridge

Whatcom Falls Park

Goat Mtn. attempt

I've never hiked Goat mtn.. before and since I've been doing quite a bit of hiking lately I felt I was ready to check this one off of my bucket list. The WTA website says that this is an 11 mile hike, so I knew the distance alone would be a challenge for me.

My husband and I set off  yesterday at about 9am and 37 degrees, brrrr. It would get into the 80's before we were done hiking. An interesting side note that kept in our conversation throughout the day was, "why did the sign at the trail head say the trail to Goat mtn. was only 3.2 miles up"? It didn't really say where the 3.2 went to, it implied that it was to the top. Crazy, wrong information. They really need to remove that sign and put up something more accurate and informative about what people will have in front of them. My endomondo gps tracker put 3.2 still in the forest, not even to the meadow yet. 

Oh well, on to our hike. I was prepared for long and up and it lived up to my expectations.

my husband in the meadow area

We couldn't have asked for a better day, not a cloud in the sky to obscure our views.

We didn't stop at the meadow as we still needed to go up,

hopefully to the top of this -

I asked my husband to stop and take a couple of photos of me in this glorious spot. The views were spectacular.

Goat mountain behind me

Shuksan behind me

I took the picture below, because it shows the Ruth creek valley where we hiked to Hannegan pass on our Thursday Trailblazer hike

The views at this point were simply amazing, but we still had an uphill to do.

up to this point the trail was in good shape and we were really enjoying our hike. in the above photo my husband is just about to take a left hand turn in the meadow to begin what we thought were long switch backs to a steeper step up to  the top. My husband had done this hike a couple of times before and had been telling me what I would encounter as we made out way up.

I stopped for a moment to capture this photo of Mt. Baker across the way -

 We saw a place where it seemed people had been trying to shortcut the trail, so ignored that and marched on and then the trail just disappeared. We then saw a similar shortcut looking area and decided that must be where we needed to  go.

"UP"

We went up this and then saw that it connected to the trail. The early switchback area that was there the last time my husband hiked this trail was no longer there. This time the switchbacks began again after the scramble up area. The trail from this point really deteriorated. The trail was very narrow and exposed with lots of scree to make it feel very sketchy to me. We were walking on a trail that in places was only as wide as one boot and that footing was sideways. We could see the trail beyond us and realized that we still had a long ways of extreme "up" ahead of us, and not knowing if the trail was any better ahead we made the decision to turn around. We just weren't comfortable with the condition of the trail. We went back and realized that the trail was really the first scramble that we assumed was a shortcut, so we headed down that one.

Time to head down.

On the way down three topics were deeply discussed. 

1. Next year we will try again (with a rope, for the sketchy spots).

2. The WTA could do us all a service and put some nice long (2 boot width) sweeping switchbacks up the scramble section where the trail has eroded away, instead of the straight up deteriorated situation it is now. I'm not against going "up", but an improved hiking trail would be appreciated. Also if I could have all of my wishes come true I'd like these long sweeping switchbacks to go all the way to the top ;-) The WTA Goat mtn. info. even states - "The trail continues along the spine of a ridge, officially terminating at 5600 feet at the base of expansive meadows high on Goat's south-facing slopes. From here follow a rough but well-defined route, first across, then straight up those flower-studded-steep slopes. Cross a couple of spring-fed creeks adorned with showy bouquets. The way here is prone to slumping, so travel carefully. After a long traverse the trail insanely heads straight up the verdant slope, reaching, a 6250-foot shoulder and an amazing view north to Tomyhoi, the High Divide, and British Columbia's infinite summits.

And the most important point of all - 

3. CHANGE the trailhead sign! It would be nice if it said something like the info. available on the WTA website which says "At about 3.75 miles arrive on a 5100 foot knoll with a knockout view of glacier-harboring Mount Sefrit and Shuksan. From the good early turnaround option (or early season objective), you'll also find an excellent shot of glistening Price Lake tucked in a high cirque on Shuksan's northern face of ica and rock." 

All in all I am pleased with how far we got and in our decision to turn around where we did.

Endomondo stats:

Total miles hiked - 10.75 miles

Minimum altitude - 2464 feet

Maximum altitude - 5808 feet

Total ascent - 3436 feet

Total descent - 3427 feet