Goat Rocks Wilderness is one of my favorite flower destinations. August is the season. To avoid the crowd, I decided to start at Lily Basin TH, a new and longer trail for me.8/8 Saturday, cloudy. My pack was 18lb. ~10:30am, 3 of us met at Crest Trail Lodge on hwy-12, before getting on FS-48 (do NOT follow Google Map's advice here). FS-48 is fairly wide and good gravel, with minimal rough parts, except one ditch near the quarry, about 6 miles in. It's quite deep. 2 of us got out of the car, and after a few attempts, we made it through. There were 4 other SUVs parked at the TH. V brought a small bear can, and I carried it, so maybe 20lb now.
The first ~4 miles are in the woods, with some blow-downs. Not too bad. Then view of Packwood Lake through trees, flowers starting to show up along the slopes. We overtook 2 couples. At mile ~5, at one of the few Glacier Creek sources, a nice campsite in the woods, overlooking a flower slope. Snack break here. Some mosquitoes. Saw one runner went by. These are the only 5 people we met until Goat Ridge.
Flowers were quite impressive for the next mile, traversing a large flowering slope. Then some rocks and gained some elevation until Angry Mt trail. After the junction, loosing elevation until the junction of Heart Lake trail. You don't see the lake from the junction. 
Saw ~5-6 tents by Heart Lake. The lake shore looks swampy and buggy. We didn't go down to the lake. One stretch of the slope had tons of paintbrush that you could see the orange-red from far away. (This photo was taken on Sunday, when the sun was out.)
There were a few snow stretches left. At the last snow slope, which I put on micro-spikes, we met a group of 6 coming out. Once we reached the pass on Goat Ridge, saw more people. The weather was not the best, quite windy. Instead of going up to Hawk Eye Point, I wanted to set up camp first. We pitched our tents just below the pass ~7000', ~8.5 miles from TH. I found a spot in the trees, so more sheltered. My 2 friends' tents were more open. By then, clouds had engulfed Hawk Eye entirely, and moving down. We had dinner ~6pm. Afterwards, it was too cold to sit outside in the wind. So we took a walk down and scramble up to the top of Goat Ridge. Quite a few tents were down at Jordan Basin, and many of them came up the ridge for sunset. But no sun. Too cloudy. By the time we returned, we were practically in the clouds. So, retired early. No bugs.Half moon rose early, and the sky was quite bright at night. Somewhat windy all night. Total 33K steps (including walking to the bus).
8/9, Sunday, sunny. Got out at 5:40am, hiked up a bit for sunrise. Clear sky. Clouds below us. Saw both Adams and St. Helens. Very pretty. Cooked breakfast, repacked for a day hike.
Going down to Goat Lake. A lot of flowers along the way. Many tents scattered around the lake. 
The Lake was only thawed at the edges. Quite pretty. Too many people though. V decided to scramble up towards PCT, because he has downloaded someone's track going over the ridges. The track was a few straight lines, unclear what exactly was done. We made an attempt. But I gave up soon enough.
Continued down to Snowgrass Flat, the center of the flower action. More flowers, more and more hikers and bugs. Heather was excellent here. Pink below the trail and then along the trail.
The short cutoff trail was closed for restoration. Walked to the trail junction of Lily Basin and Snowgrass Flat. Thick lupine here. More hikers and mosquitoes too. Don't stay still for long.
Once on PCT, we hiked north, passing again tons of lupines, then to heather land. Then some snowfield to cross, all fairly easy. Near the junction to Old Snowy, you can see clearly Mt. Rainier and Goat Lake. Many folks spread out here on the rocks for lunch. Now with our objective in sight, we decided to cross here. Had lunch too, before putting on spikes. There were two snowfields to negotiate, one is somewhat steep. We managed to glissade a bit. Here is O having her snack before our adventure. After the snow, it was fairly easy. We got down to the trail and crowd, and hiked back to camp. A little past my estimated 1pm.
I washed, and waited for my feet to dry before packing up. V wanted to cook lunch. There were now some big horse flies. They bite. We took off shortly after 2pm. Hiking out was straightforward. After cresting the junction towards Hawk Eye, we didn't meet a single person until a few minutes before TH. Now that the sky was blue, we could see Rainier very close. No more tents at Heart Lake. We made the same snack stop at the same campsite by Glacier Creek. Reached TH ~6:30. 2 cars.Driving down over the big ditch was easier. Dropped O off at Crest Trail Lodge. I was dropped off at my bus stop ~9:30pm. Waited ~15 minutes for my bus. About a dozen people on the bus. Got home ~10pm. Total step today 50K!
