What do do in the afternoon before Bago & Rixford the next day? Goat Mountain is a classic big and sustained Sierra hill climb with an outstanding panoramic view of the High Sierra at the top. From Road’s End in Kings Canyon to the summit is 7,000 ft of vertical in around 11 miles and the grade is steep at times. The majority of the gain is accomplished on the well-traveled Copper Creek Trail departing from Road’s End. The first switchbacks can be quite hot midday as I discovered, but there are excellent views of Kings Canyon including the Grand Sentinel immediately across the Canyon. As one ascends, the vegetation gradually changes to pine and fir trees and the temperature cools.
About 7.5 miles from the trailhead just below the pass that drops into Granite Basin, leave the trail and take a faint use path north (or go cross country) toward a meadow area containing the fork of Copper Creek that drains Grouse Lake. Along this traverse there are lovely views of Mount Clarence King and Mount Gardiner. A short ascent from this meadow leads to beautiful Grouse Lake which is surrounded by granite slabs and clumps of pine trees in quintessential Sierra fashion. From above Grouse Lake there are nice views of the Great Western Divide. It’s all cross country past Grouse Lake up the basin, but the terrain is easy with friendly, low angle granite slabs virtually the entire way up to the foot of Goat Mountain. The lower part of the final ascent up Goat is loose but becomes more solid in the upper portion with large talus blocks near the top. The view from Goat Mountain’s summit is simply amazing and worth the return trip so soon after my climb last October as part of the Monarch Divide Semi-Loop. It’s truly a remarkable point with a sweeping panorama from the Evolution area to the Kaweahs. The centerpiece of the view overlooks the South Fork Kings Canyon and the Muro Blanco with the peaks of the King Spur most prominent, including Mount Clarence King, Mount Cotter and Mount Gardiner. I also enjoyed the view looking to the Kings-Kern Divide including Mount Stanford, Caltech Peak and Mount Ericsson. Beyond the Kings-Kern Divide Mount Williamson and Mount Whitney were clearly visible. The good news is that once you’re on top of Goat Mountain, it’s virtually all downhill back to Road’s End. The Copper Creek Trail is fairly nice for downhill running with no brush and less rocks than some of the other trails out of Kings Canyon. GPS route here.
Leor Pantilat's Adventures 
nice bear shots too!
I agree that Goat Mtn. is one spectacular view. There are so many important mountains so prominently visible from the summit, including Goddard, North, Middle, & South Palisade, King, Gardiner, and Brewer (not to mention far-off Whitney), that I once believed these mountains (excluding Whitney) were named from the top of Goat Mountain. Then I found out that Mt. Brewer was summitted by the Whitney Survey before Goat Mountain, so now I am not so sure. Goat Mountain was one of the first Sierra peaks to be climbed in the mid-1800s, so it has history as well as scenery.