Roughly a year ago I went to Goat Rocks Wilderness for the first time. It’s crowded, but for very good reason: It’s extraordinarily beautiful. This post will be pretty pic heavy folks. Brace yourself for quite a bit of wildflower pornography and scenic wonders. You are afforded views of Ranier, Adams, and St Helens, not to mention Goat Rocks.

I was a little freaked out arriving to the parking lot Friday night at 1030 to see like 60 cars parked in the area. Despite this wilderness area being kind of small, everyone seemed to fit. We had a few beers and slept in the parking lot Friday night. Saturday we hiked up to Old Snowy, a summit I failed to bag last year because I was running out of daylight. We camped around treeline north of Snowgrass Flats. The next day we went off-trail a bit to catch another trail to Goat Lake and then went down into Jordan Basin and back to the trailhead. I really hate crowded areas, but this one is really worth it!

Day 1 is the red line, Day 2 is the dotted blue line. Here’s the map and elevation profiles:

Now for the wildflowers, in no particular order:

Columbines at low elevation Avalanche Lilies

Now for some majestic scenery in no particular order: