Backpacker Magazine – October 1997

Goat Rocks Wilderness: A Real Eye-Popper

Some say Goat Rocks Wilderness has the best scenery along the 2,600-mile Pacific Crest Trail. Decide for yourself.

by: John Benson

Tags:
• California
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• Pacific Crest Trail
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• Adventures
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• Weekends
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• Wildlife
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Hike through luxurious forest into a high meadow sparkling with streams and flowers. Frame the scene with a backdrop of dark, craggy summits laced with snowfields. Top it off with views of mammoth volcanoes, and you'll know why Goat Rocks Wilderness rates as one of the most scenic stretches of wilderness along the Pacific Crest Trail. Considering the competition-the Sierra and North Cascades, for example-this is not a minor boast.

Some 31 miles of the Mexico-to-Canada PCT wind through the marshy lowlands, deep forests, and jagged remnants of prehistoric volcanic vents that characterize this 105,000-acre wilderness, but it's by no means the only road to this show. An additional 90 miles of trail opens a wide variety of hiking options, like the short scramble from the PCT to the top of 7,930-foot Old Snowy Mountain, which pays off in a panorama dominated by the hulking cones of Mts. Rainier and Adams.

Old Snowy is a half-day excursion from Snowgrass Flat, itself a 6-mile, 1,800-foot grunt up Snowgrass Trail from the nearest trailhead. The Flat is a popular camping area amid lush meadows that in late summer swell with lupine, goldenrod, Indian paintbrush, and many other native wildflowers.

If you're seeking solitude, you can usually find it in the Coyote Lake area, a rigorous 6-mile hike up the Clear Fork Trail. Or stretch your legs and head for the sky on the 11-mile Lily Basin Trail or the steep, 9-mile Angry Mountain Trail. Both climb 3,400 feet into the high and remote Johnson Peak area. And as you're hiking, keep an eye out for marmots, elk, and black-tailed deer.

As you might expect, Goat Rocks has its share of mountain goats, and it is also popular with that other breed of mountain inhabitant: alpinists. The 8,200-foot summit of Mt. Curtis Gilbert can be bagged by a challenging but nontechnical ascent. The ridge to the west of Curtis Gilbert is capped with several basalt horns rated as technical, Class 4 pitches. Further along the ridge, the 7,940-foot Ives Peak is a steep scramble.

The window for hiking and climbing at Goat Rocks is narrow-snow doesn't melt until August and it can fly again in September-but it's worth slipping through.

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