I can't quite believe it's taken me ten years of hiking to get to the GRW, but there it is. It absolutely lived up to its hype and I'm stoked to discover a new playground (full of what looks like fun loop trips!).
NF-21 is easy driving and the 17-ish miles of gravel road were painless and quick. We parked at the Berry Patch TH around 8:30 AM, did a little dance while we got our packs ready to deter the mosquitos that immediately swarmed us, and headed out to do the loop CCW. The Snowgrass trail is in great shape and we found ourselves at Snowgrass Flats in what felt like no time at all.
The Flats is (are?) still melting out and wildflowers won't be out for several weeks, so give it time if that's what you're looking for. Also, the bugs thankfully disappeared at this point and wouldn't return again until we dropped below treeline on the Goat Ridge trail.
There was patchy snow heading up to Old Snowy, but we never even thought about putting on microspikes.
The ridge and final bit of scramble are snow-free, and the summit was impressive! The views up there really make you feel like you did something tougher than you actually did.
On heading down from the summit, we retraced our steps to roughly 7,050', then headed cross-country to pick up the Lily Basin trail that would take us to Goat Lake. It was easy travel on snow / rock and we could see the trail to Goat Lake the entire time so there was never a chance of dropping too low.
The final 1/2 mile to Goat Lake is mostly snow-free with just a few areas of side-hilling required. Most have gentle run-outs and will be gone in another few weeks. The lake itself is still frozen over.
From the lake, we found the Goat Ridge trail and followed it all the way back down to the trailhead. The Goat Ridge trail is 96% snow-free and also in great shape.
I think this ended up being around 16 mi and 4,200'. We encountered seven or eight other groups but they were either backpacking the PCT, staying at the Flats or at the lake, or coming to/from Heart Lake. Great day in the mountains!
Good Stuff we did several loops through there both in August from Conrad Meadows and Berry Patch and will be doing a trip from Pinegrass Ridge shortly. Is the area ahead of its usual meltout time or normal ? Thanks for the pics !
Good Stuff we did several loops through there both in August from Conrad Meadows and Berry Patch and will be doing a trip from Pinegrass Ridge shortly. Is the area ahead of its usual meltout time or normal ? Thanks for the pics !
Hard to say as this is my first time in the area. Based on general melt-out conditions in the rest of the state, I'd say it's earlier than normal...but that's just a WAG.
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That view from the top of Old Snowy looking at the crest of the Goat Rocks is great.
