North Cascades National Park Highpoint Trip Report

Goode Mountain (9,200+ ft)

Author: John Mitchler
Date: late July 2004

an attempt

As many of you may have heard, prior to the HP Club convention in late July 2004, Dave Covill, Charlie Winger, and I set out to climb Goode Mountain. from Rainey Pass using the Pacific Crest Trail. The approach was too long for the time allotted, so on the second day we sat down along the trail and counted the miles and the hours and decided to turn around.

We hiked 24 miles round-trip with 1700 feet of elevation gain. We vowed to return, with more time (and less weight).

There are 4 approaches to Goode and we measured all four; distance & gain, which we may include in our upcoming guidebook. Mr. National Park, Greg Griffith, hiked in from Rainey Pass and out to Lake Chelan (and amazingly caught a ride back to the pass). For my return tirp, I intend to hike in and out from the lake.

During our trip reconaissance, Dave collected some good web sites and photos of Goode which we'll also include in our upcoming guidebook. For our hike, we stopped by the park's WIC in Marblemount and obtained the mandatory permit. There didn't seem to be any demand for backcountry camping there yet they still required us to identify our campsites. In fact, a wilderness ranger stopped us on the trail and required us to show our permit. All rangers were friendly and we enjoyed our visit. We saw only one other hiker during our time on the PCT.