Here are some pictures of the trip Mike and I took to Goat Rocks in the South Cascades of Washington... This trip was pretty much a scouting trip to become familiar with the area. To get the latest Area information, click here... The hike to the ridge is fairly easy, and took us a little over 4 hours to get to a camp spot on the saddle to the south of the rocks. There was still some access to water running off the rocks, but this is probably gone by August. Also, there was a pretty constant wind running across the saddle there whole time we were there.
| The Hike Up... - The hike includes around 4 miles on trail 96A, 1 mile on trail 97, and then around 2 miles south on the Pacific Crest Trail (trail 2000). While there are couple good views of Mt. Adams from the trail on the way up, it's mostly in the trees, and encourages a quick pace to get on to the PCT. I took this picture of the Goat Rocks drainage which cascades into what becomes Cispus River. At any rate, we weren't in a big hurry, and took a nice nap 20 minutes below where we eventually camped. |
|
||||||||||||
| Choosing a place to stay... - Once at the drainage, there are several choices for where to camp. We chose a saddle on the right beneath the taller spires. In hindsight though, I think the saddle on the left would have been better for views. The view of Mt. Ranier was hidden from our location, plus the morning colors would have been more spectacular. |
|
||||||||||||
| Dinner... - Due to the long dusk, we had plenty of time to eat, and still get in ready for some evening colors. Here Mike enjoys a pot of ramen. We had to cook and eat in the rocks as the wind was pretty relentless! |
|
||||||||||||
| Mike on the ridge... - Mike has this insatiable urge to try and get the best pictures possible, and he usually does! In order to get them though, he sometimes pulls some pretty insane moves. Here we have him pretty much taking the most difficult route up this ridge to get above the clouds. I was tempted to head up also, but chose to bet on the deck staying below my ridge. I lost, Mike won... |
|
||||||||||||
Dusk
colors... - For
most of the afternoon, the sky was uniformly dreary. Then at around
6 o'clock, the wind kicked up, and the upper deck moved off, and waves of
clouds at 7,000 feet came and moved on. During the show, we both
started taking shots of anything interesting:
|
|
||||||||||||
| Dawn... - The morning was still windy, but the clouds were staying lower in the valleys. We were hurt by our campsite selection to get good morning colors, as the low sun was hidden on Mt. Adams by the Goat Rocks ridge. The northern saddle would have been a better selection. Still, I captured this shot of a very inspiring Mt. Adams... |
|
||||||||||||
| Scrambling the spires... - On Sunday morning, we decided to check out the other saddle, and assess access to the spires for climbing. Mike took this shot... The vantage point where I took most of yesterday evenings pictures is in the lower left. Once in the saddle, we were greeted with an awesome view of Mt. Ranier, and views of the McCall and Conrad glaciers. The first spire looked very accessible, so we scrambled up in about 20 minutes... |
|
