Please respect the outdoors by practicing Leave No Trace. Learn more about how to apply the principles of Leave No Trace on your next outdoor adventure here.
Located just outside of Mount Rainier National Park in the Silver Creek Valley and just down the road from Crystal Mountain Ski Resort is a little horse camp occupying a forest clearing known as Sand Flats. Sand Flats Horse Camp has space for roughly 6 to 8 campsites and sits between Crystal Mountain Boulevard and Silver Creek. The camp offers few amenities other than a large water trough, a vault toilet, food lockers, and a half-dozen horse hitching poles.
The draw? Countless miles of riding/hiking trails in the more arid, federally designated Norse Peak Wilderness. You can access the trails from a trailhead on the east side of Crystal Mountain Boulevard, where it is an arduous 2,600-foot switchback climb on the Goat Lake Trail up to the top of Little Crow Basin Hayden Pass.
Logistics + Planning
Preferable season(s)
Summer
Fall
Parking Pass
NW Forest Pass
Pros
Access to Norse Peak Wilderness trails.
Cons
No privacy between sites. No stalls, hitches only.
Comments
Sign In and share them.