a hike to the hidden Goat Lake in the Sawtooth Mountains

As part of my backpacking trip to the Toxaway Alice loop in the Sawtooth Mountains, I was trying to find a nice day hike also in the area. The one one that kept coming up and people highly recommended was Goat Lake.

Access to the lake doesn’t have an established trail, but if you google it there are good descriptions on how to reach it.

The trailhead used is the Iron Creek campground, which is the trailhead for the popular Sawtooth Lake. You will deviate from the trail at a ‘Y’ intersection, taking a left and then starting to get some elevation.

At some point you will leave the main trail (making a right) on a clear social trail. It is easy to see this intersection, you just need to map it on a GPS to keep an eye for it. The social trail will take you all the way to Goat Falls and here is the rub, the trail the goes to Goat Falls takes place before you get to the falls:

There is a rock bench that you need to get on and it is marked with a rock cairn, but if I didn’t have the location marked on my GPS I would have missed it. You need to climb on the bench and then follow a social trail that has some rock cairns and areas that look like humans have stepped on.

At some point there is a trick area that will take you to the lake on two paths: one is through a large talon field (to the right) and another that will keep you in solid ground and take you over what looks like a beaver dam. Avoid the ankle breaking talon field. Once past the beaver dam, the social trail is clear and it is smooth sailing to the lake.

There is little shore and that gives it a unique look.

I ad to take pics with my iphone since I took with me the wrong camera lenses to catch a good view of the lake; you can’t move away, the lake is that enclosed within the mountain side.

A smart family had camped at the foot of the lake, on a rock bench with a view of the lake. Even though there is little shore, you can hike on the sides on a social trail that follows the lake but doesn’t get to the shore (mostly).