Goat Lake Spring Hike

Today, we hiked to Goat Lake in the Henry M Jackson Wilderness. This hike is on the Mountain Loop Hwy, east of Granite Falls. The hike is 10.4 miles roundtrip with 1400 ft of elevation gain.

 The trail starts in the woods with a soft trail and a gentle grade.

 The trail soon splits into the Upper Elliot and Lower Elliot Trails. We choose to hike up the Lower Elliot Trail that follows Elliot Creek.

 We enjoyed hiking in the forest, with Elliot Creek nearby and lots of wildflowers along the way.

 The trail goes under a very large fallen tree.

 We had many glimpses of Elliot Creek between the trees.

 There were a few short wooden bridges and rock crossings over streams.

 After 3 miles, the Lower and Upper Elliot trails join together and continue on to Goat Lake.

 There were two very large trees where the trail enters the Henry M Jackson Wilderness.

 We had some views of the nearby peaks.

 Soon, the trail reaches an old stump and rootball. The trail to the right goes to a waterfall, the trail to the left begins to climb uphill in a series of switchbacks to Goat Lake.

The side trail to the waterfall has lots of fallen logs to climb over.

 I stepped out onto the large rocks along the creek to get this photo of the lower falls, the upper falls are hidden behind the trees.














We continued the hike up to Goat Lake, we saw these falls coming down from the outlet of Goat Lake on Elliot Creek.












We saw some long narrow waterfalls coming down the cliffs as we approached Goat Lake.

Panorama at Goat Lake:

 View of Goat Lake from the shore:

Waterfall we saw along the north shore of Goat Lake

 After enjoying a leisurely lunch break at the lake, we returned to the trail and took the Upper Elliot Trail back down. We saw many small waterfalls along this route through the woods.

A large boulder we hiked around on the Upper Elliot Trail.

View of the mountains from the Upper Elliot Trail.

Some of the many wildflowers we saw along the trail today: