Cowlitz County High Point Trip Report
Goat Mountain (4,965 ft)
Date: June 15, 2000
Author: Jim Perkins
Today I successfully highpointed Goat Mountain. John Roper's trip reports suggested that maybe it would
be better to tackle this from the west. It is. At 8 miles when the paved 81 road turns east, go straight,
on the 8117. I did not measure it but it was about 5 miles up this road. Make sure you use a good map.
I parked at the intersection with the 470 spur road (T:8N, R:4E, Section 21, SW of the NE).
A passenger car works just fine on these roads.
I noticed several avalanche chutes filled with Vine Maple so I planned
my route to avoid those. I headed west, up, from this intersection at a starting elevation of 3,224 ft.
The slope on this is about 60%. I soon gained a prominent ridge in between two avalanche chutes and
switchbacked my way up. The ridge took me about 3/4 of the way,
then I had to do some Class 3 scrambling.
I reached the peak of the most western flank in 2 1/2 hours. The next hump over, which looked of equal
height so I did that too, had the USGS Benchmark. "Goat Mountain, 4965 ft."
The views were noteworthy. Being just west of Mt Saint Helens gave you a great view of the climbers route.
A sunny day gave me views of Mt Saint Helens, Mt Adams, Mt Hood, and Mt Rainier.
On the return I followed the same ridge back down to the intersection of the 8117 and 470 spur road.
This took 1 3/4 hours.
A really good highpoint, but my knees and feet are feeling the 1,741 feet of elevation gain;
an equal amount of elevation loss; and the lack of trail.