Sand Flats Horse Camp

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.