Thursday, August 16, 2007

Goat Rocks/Old Snowy 7/24/07

After spending a day touring Rainier National Park, Liz and I headed out to Goat Rocks for a quick overnight backpacking trip and a run up Old Snowy. I’d heard a lot of people rave about Goat Rocks over the years, but had been dissuaded by the long drive.

Let me say, it’s definitely worth it! This is without a doubt one of the most beautiful wilderness areas I’ve ever been to. The landscape looks like some scene from a fantasy novel. Dramatic mountain ranges, a frozen lake with a huge cascading waterfall, open meadows with wildflowers and lazy mountain streams.
Since Old Snowy was our objective we camped at the the PCT/ Trail 96 intersection instead of continuing on to Goat Lake. The scramble up the N. side of Old Snowy turned out to be short and easy on solid rock. We traversed the ridge towards Ives Peak on our way back to camp and explored several gendarmes along the ridge. We ended up too short on time to make it all the way over to Ives Peak, but I guess that gives me another good excuse to go back! A short scree descent led back to the PCT and our camp.


No comments:

Post a Comment