There and Back Again: Goat Flats

We hiked to Goat Flats yesterday, a five-mile ascent to a spectacular view of the northern Cascades. If you go further, you meet up with Three Fingers trail, which will take you up to the Three Fingers lookout atop those jagged peaks. We went with our friends Maile and Brian and saw maybe eight other people throughout the day. Apparently the hike is somewhat busy through the summer but yesterday was definitely not proof of its popularity. It was great to have the trail nearly to ourselves.

The only downside to this hike is the two-hour drive to the trailhead. One hour gets you into the national park and the next hour is spent on an 18-mile gravel road dodging potholes at 20 mph. We weren't sure whether we were on the correct road heading up to the trailhead so we flagged down a sketchy-looking truck heading the opposite way. Mark asked the driver if we were on Highway 41 and the guy replied, "Dude... we're on planet Earth, man!" The passenger in the truck then said something about herb and 420, and it became obvious we'd get no pertinent information from them so we said thanks and drove on (we were indeed on the correct road, by the way).

Word on the street is that tons of mountain goats congregate in the area but we didn't see one... I was very disappointed. If I'm going to be in GOAT FLATS then at least show me a goat!