Goat Rocks

[MATT_B]

I'm thinking about heading to goat rocks for the weekend. Never having been there I'd like some recomendations of places to go and mountains to see. From what I know of the place it is probably not worth taking a rope or rack. I'm also assuming that there will be little (if any) snow in the area.

[Ursa_Eagle]

I was there last weekend. We parked at the snowgrass flats trailhead, hiked to the PCT, then followed it North until we were below the west "face" of Old Snowy. We ascended easy snow slopes and loose talus slopes to the north ridge, where we wound up about 50 feet from the PCT again (I'd go back and do it my way again in a heartbeat, it was more fun than just going up a trail.) Following the north ridge, we scrambled up a very short 3rd class section and reached the summit. We then went south along the ridge, over/around some gendarmes and made it to right below Ives. A direct ascent isn't very viable, but if you drop down to the SW a little, there's a ramp that leaves the scree slope and goes out onto the SW (?) face of Ives. Some loose, exposed 3rd class gets you to the top. Just go straight up once you can, avoid traversing across the face. We descended down the other edge of that face towards meadows leading up to Cispus Pass, made it back to some herd paths that led to the PCT, then followed the PCT north to Snowgrass Flats were we had joined it earlier in the day. We hiked back to the Lily Basin cutoff, then followed that by Goat Lake and down Goat Ridge to the cars. We carried none of the following: rope, helmet, ice axe, crampons, rack, etc. I carried water, a shell, a small first aid kit, and my cameras. It's a beautiful area, only 3 hours from Portland, and well worth the trip. It took us about 3 hours to get up Old Snowy, 2 hours for the traverse, 2 hours down to Snowgrass Flats (you can do it much faster if you retrace your ascent of Ives then drop down to Snowgrass Flats from the traverse), then 2.5 hours out to the car via Goat Lake. Add in an hour total on the summits, and we got back to the cars 10.5 hours after leaving.

 

On the traverse, you pass underneath some pretty loose gendarmes, and although nothing was dropping off while were going underneath, my partner was kinda wanting a helmet. I felt fine with just moving fast through those areas.

[rbw1966]

Damn Ursa--way to connect the dots for the brother.

[rock-ice]

I second the recomendations for ives and others on that same ridgeline. If you wanted to you could just jump on and off the pct from snowgrass and Ives or Gilbert and bag as many as five peaks (Curtis Gilbert, Ives, Old Snowy, Hawkeye point, johnson).

I think its a safe bet that there won't be much snow left. Have fun, its a great area.

[Terry_McClain]

On Wed. I solo climbed Curtis Gilbert and Old Snowy. I car camped at trailhead to get a early start (4:40am) and was on summit of Curtis Gilbert at 10AM. I did not take the bypass trail cut off. If you take it, it will save some time. I then reversed back through the gully system and staying high, traversed across boulders and scree to just before Ives, crossed over to the East side, skirted Ives, and stayed on snow all the way to Old Snowy. This took less than three hours from Curtis Gilbert. From Old snowy, pick up the Pacific crest trail back to snowgrass flats and out. Car to car was a little over 11hours. I calculated approx. 18 miles and 7500' gain all total. If you go with a partner and rope, you could bypass the rotten gully descent and drop over to the east side right before Goat citadel. There are some crevasses to negotiate there, but it looked straightforward. This would save a lot of energy not having to deal with the gully or scree/boulder traverse to Ives. This trip sits as pretty much a 5 star rating in my book.

[Fairweather]

Terry,

 

How did the climb up from Meade or Conrad Glaciers look? I think it's about 8 miles in to Warm Lake this way. Do you think this way would be any shorter and/or avoid the choss?

 

Nice trip!

[Flying_Ned]

You can get from Curtis Gilbert to the east side and the upper Conrad before the Goat Citadel and make a nice high traverse Old Snowy. We've done it from Gilbert to a notch directly above Cispus Basin without much difficulty. Rope was not necessary.

[jhamaker]

Actualy, if you want to climb Little (Goat) Horn, Big Goat Horn, and Little Big Horn and that other goat spire, you will want a rope. Pitches range in lenth from 10ft to 100ft.

 

Have Fun!

[Terry_McClain]

Fairweather,

I could see most of the upper portion of Conrad glacier from Old Snowy. A couple of slots to end run, but it looked really straightforward. It looks like Conrad meadows approach is shorter as well. I'll email you a good high res. pic.

 

[Fairweather]

Cancelled my Olympic Mountain plans and took the kid over to the Goat Rocks. We planned to climb Curtis Gilbert via Meade Glacier but upon our arrival at Rimrock Lake we discovered the So Fork Tieton Road was blocked 14 miles from the trailhead. ("Closed due to fire danger" )

 

We then drove around to Chambers Lake trailhead and hiked to just below Snowgrass Flats with our goal of climbing Curtis Gilbert unchanged. (Yes, I know Bypass Camp is closer, but we wanted the views.)

 

Friday morning we hooked up with the PCT and hiked in a steady rain to Cispus Pass. The "trail" down from here shown on Beckey's map is mostly obliterated and difficult to follow, but after a 600' descent from the pass we crossed two spur ridges, two beautiful alpine basins, and climbed up a 1000' steep gully to Klickton divide in improving, but windy weather. We followed the broad ridge along the edge of the Meade Glacier and scrambled 3rd class (maybe some 4th) up the summit block. Nice views of other Goat Rocks summits from the top, but Rainier was lost in clouds, and only the lower half of Adams was visible. Warm and Surprise Lakes looked inviting below....and a lot closer than our camp back at Snowgrass.

 

The descent took almost as long as the climb, carefully dropping down the gully, and climbing back up to Cispus Pass, then dropping again to 5800', and climbing back up to 6400'. We packed up Friday night and hiked back to the car under headlamps.

 

Nice trip with my son!