2nd time here in a month, better weather this time :) A truly remarkable area. My route is highlighted in orange on the map.9/19 Friday. Left work early. Met Julie and Tom at Gateway. Took off at 4pm. Traffic in the city was bad at first. Julie drove pretty steadily and blasted through the washboard FR 21. We made to Chambers Lake at 7, able to set up tents in daylight. Lots of sites to choose from. This is a horse camp, without horse tonight. The outhouse has toilet paper. Quite clean. About 50F. I put on a sweater and fleece, and that was enough to sit around. I ate my leftover, hot tea from my little thermo. Tom cooked canned veggie and hot dogs in his Jetboil. I didn't see Julie eat. I shared my tomatoes with her. They are both climbers and expert backpackers. I learnt many nice areas that I have to explore in the future. Before retiring, we walked to the lake for a starry sky reflected in the water. Absolutely beautiful. 9pm.
9/20 Saturday. This plan for this weekend was Goat Lake Loop.
I rose at 7. Read a bit. We didn't start hiking from Berry Patch TH until 9. There's a small lake along the trail. 0.4 miles it converge with the Snowgrass trail. One hour in, Julie's stomach cramped up, again, according to her, for the past month. She was visibly weak, sweat streaming down and she needed bio breaks often. So our progress was slow, and our route was revised. Snowgrass Flat trail junction is 5 miles in. Nice meadow turning red. 2 campsites, but I didn't see water. We took Lily Basin trail on the left, soon saw Adams. Lost some elevation in a mile, reached a nice creek, and pitched our tents closeby in front of a talus slope behind some trees, with a nice fire ring and plenty seating rocks nicely surrounding it. Not much view though.
At 3pm, we continued further north along the eastern slope of Goat Basin. Very pretty. A small waterfall, one more creek, and a nice camp just NE. Taken :( Further north along the slope, one more creek, but no camp, until almost at Goat Lake, where everyone was. 
We counted 20+ tents. Certainly lovely, if not crowded and exposed. The cool air off the lake can easily chill: it still has ice floating on it. 
~20 goats above the lake on the other side. I was pleasantly surprised to see lots of yellow daisy-like flowers and asters.I continued on and up, now by myself, circled the north end of Goat Basin. At the junction of Goat Ridge trail, you can see Gordon Basin (or Goat Ridge Meadow), smaller, a nice stream, quite idyllic, good campsites.
I turned right/north following Lily Basin trail, all up slope. Pretty soon, Mt hood can been seen behind Adams. There's a small plateau, flat enough to put many tents. Exposed, and no water (except snow further up). As you crest the ridge, Lily Basin is now in full view, as well as Mt Rainier. Along this stretch, lots of now dead monkey flowers. I'll have to come again to see the pink slope. Here, I turned east (right), walked up to a hilltop, then dropped down an icy slope, up again to Hawkeye Pt. All the way you can see both Lily Basin below Mt Rainier, and Goat Basin below Mt Adams. Absolutely gorgeous, the best view of this weekend. At the very end, Hawkeye Pt, is a remnant of some lookout. Lots of rusty nails and some serious iron poles. You can see Goat Lake below. 
Instead of backtracking, I edged straight down. Suffice to say that it is a bad idea, one of my poles was broken in my slow and dangerous process. However, I did see the goats again closer as they moved west from Goat Lake, and a marmot. 
By the time I got back down to the trail, my legs were a bit shaken. It was almost 7, and I enjoyed the sunset on my way back to camp, not as good as on the Flat. Tom had a fire going. I tried to cook some water at the fire edge, didn't quite work. Tried my $5 wingstove, not working either, the flame was blown sideways. Another beautiful starry sky. I was the last to bed. Saw 2 shooting stars!9/21 Sunday. A warm night.
I sweated in my 0° bag. I got up at 7. Julie was already up since sunrise. I picked huckleberries before the sun got high on me. Julie was much better today. About 9, we decided to walk to Snowgrass Flat, where I went with my nephew 4 weeks ago. Almost no flowers left, still very beautiful. Now the fall color has graced the meadows. Under clear blue sky, the grass and leaves shone brilliantly. We were back to TH ~1:30. Stopped at IGA at Randle for some cool drinks. Driving back was uneventful. Hot.
