Goat Island Mountain-Banshee Peak "7up" loop, Mount Rainier National Park

Besides White River, I haven't truly been in MRNP for over a decade. This is a sweet hiking loop that is about half on trail and half cross country (though reasonably tame). All credit to WillisWall for his very cool MRNP 7up route collection; excited to do some of the other ones as well!

Hitting the trail early I had the entire Goat Island Mountain traverse to myself and didn't see anyone until intersecting the Wonderland just above the Summer Land campground. Unfortunately, I had a very tight timetable with a hard cutoff of four hours before having to turn around. I reached the west summit of Banshee Peak at 3:58 elapsed and had to skip the little 1/3-mile walk out to the true summit. After making the descent from there to the trail head in only 1:50, it become apparent I probably did have enough time to hit the true summit and still be back in time. Oh well...

Made the round trip in 5:50 car-to-car (5:50am-11:40am).

Love those pink paintbrush; basin at 5900' when switching ridges on the climb up Goat Island Mountain (GIM)

White River from the east ridge of GIM

White River, Cowlitz Chimneys, Banshee, Adams, Panhandle Gap, edge of Little Tahoma

Goat Island Mountain summit 7,288'

Double selfie, I guess

Moraine lake in the White River valley, with Burroughs/Sunrise above

Idyllic ridge travel on GIM

Little Tahoma and falls coming off of the Fryingpan Glacier

No issues with crossing the moraine/two forks of Fryingpan Creek

Summer Land

Look back at GIM from the Wonderland Trail, just below Panhandle Gap

Meadow walking to Banshee

Adams, Hood and St. Helens

Cowlitz Chimneys and the Sarvant Glacier, from Banshee's west summit 7,265'

Lake on the Wonderland Trail, below Panhandle Gap

Practically a road walk back to the trail head!