Goat Island Mountain 07/03/2013

Goat Island Mountain seemed like a good place to start exploring Mount Rainier.   I got this map from a site called SummitPost where various people give trip reports.  The Frying Pan Creek trail head is about 4 miles from the White River Information  center and like 6 miles into the park from the White River Entrance.

I was on the Wonderland Trail a trail that encircles Mt. Rainier when I stumbled across a bear.

It tuns out it was a family of bears.  The cubs where probably 3-4 months old.  The mother saw me, but wasn't threatened because her cubs came out after a couple a minutes.  There were eating some vegetation and were there for a good few minutes before taking off toward Frying Pan Creek.

A little footbridge on the way to Summerland.  A climber named E. S. Ingraham named this area.  

Continue towards Summerland then the real fun begins.  This route is almost all bushwhacking from here.  My notes told me to cross Frying Pan Creek about 1/4 mile from the footbridge.  That green meadow to the center of picture is close to the ridge I will be taking. 

This is Little Tahoma, a climb that I would like to do this summer.  It is a sub peak of Mount Rainier, and the   third highest peak in Washington at 11,138 ft.

Here's where I think I took the long way.  I climbed though this talus field, when maybe a should have gone to the other side, but it was heavy forested and a wanted to see the ridge line.

I ran into a mountain goat as well, a literally almost ran him over.  He retreated, far down the valley toward White River.

A game trail or hiking trail?  I have to stay on the ridge.

Great views of the mountain from here on out.

False summit, it is still maybe 1,000 of elevation.

A self timing picture of me of top of Goat Island Mountain elevation 7,288 

You can see the long ridge I had to hike to the top of the peak.

Mt Adams and Mt. Hood in the background.

I belive this is Shadow Lake looking NE.

Here I made another mistake, I tried down climbing this because it was less rocky.  But it cliffed out and I had to climb up a bit and over to the grassy knoll area and I glissaded down a bit on some snow.

Here  is a marmot, overall I saw a great abundance of wildlife this trip.