Rob writes:

A group of 8 of our club members met up early on Saturday morning July 22 to drive to the Chilliwack Lake area and hike the Goat Ridge trail. 

As a note to others, there were dozens of cars filling the Lindeman Lake parking lot and the sides of the road by 9 am. This area is obviously a very popular spot, so plan on an early start if you want to hike any of the trails near Lindeman or Chilliwack Lake!

Trail conditions were about as expected - a steep and dusty trail with lots of loose soil and rock, making footing a bit tricky, especially on the way down. Six rope sections were also part of the trail. Some were very helpful whereas other ropes weren't needed by many of our group while climbing some sections.  The ropes were more helpful to keep from slipping on the way down. Fortunately there were several nice viewpoints once we got out of the woods a bit and started up the actual ridge part of the trail. We stopped at several of these including one nice viewpoint for our lunch spot. There were nice views of Lindeman and Chilliwack Lakes below and of the surrounding mountains including Goat Mountain above.  

The weather cooperated by being dry and not too hot.  Our group was covered in dust and very warm by the end of the hike, so appreciated the refreshments and snacks back at the vehicles.

We spent about 6 hours on the trail including several rest stops and a leisurely lunch break.