Couldn't waste a sunny afternoon sitting around the house.  Cougar Mountain is a great way to get a quick hike in when I'm in town.  I started on the Military Road trail from Harvey Manning Park in the Talus development.  There's lots of tall, mossy, second growth trees, ferns and fungus, and some decent though filtered views.  Creeks are pretty full right now.  There was a nice turnout with two bench seats overlooking a creek when I returned on the Harvey Manning Trail.  You can get more mileage in by combining other trails, this one was a short two-mile loop.

On September 20, 2014, I first discovered the Big Tree Ridge Trail off Newport Way NW.  Everything seemed pretty new.  There was a formal trail with comprehensive signage introducing this trailhead and the trail it served, and there was limited, but clear off the main road parking.  A couple of years passed and then a major housing development was started on the north side of Newport Way and then Newport Way itself was being rebuilt and rebuilt in a major way. The obvious parking disappeared, but there were a few spots you could get into, then those disappeared.  About this time, signage appeared indicating that a formal trailhead with designated parking would be available spring 2021.  During Covid, I unraveled for myself many of the old trails that existed near or that intersected the Big Tree Ridge Trail, especially those on Military Ridge.  Later, I discovered that Yean Kim, a member of Boy Scout Troop 336 electronically mapped and signed much of this older trail system for his Eagle Scout project (Figure 2).  In a trip report by me on November 6, 2022, I voiced disappointment regarding the failed promised trailhead.

When I brought a colleague today to Cougar Mountain, we parked at the Harvey Manning trailhead and set off in an easily pasted together set of trails that formed a figure eight with a top end tail from the parking area to the peak to Newport Way NW.   There was lots of new signage especially on the  lower part of the figure eight loop.  When we clambered over the big basalt blocks just as one of the older, unmarked trails was reaching Newport Way, I saw immediately to my left that there was a new trailhead.  Not new yesterday, but within the last couple of months, but new.  In a November 16, 2023 trip report by AlpsDayTripper, he noted “the Big Tree Ridge trailhead, 30 parking spots, 2 port-o-pots, …” is present.  If I had been more diligent, I would have read that before leaving Seattle and we would have parked there.  However, I failed to do that.  Because of my failure, I was rewarded with this incredible visual change – from unfulfilled promise to this major parking area and newly re-established trailhead Figures 1 and 3).  Only photographs do this change justice. The new trailhead parking connects with a graded switch-back to the bike path on Newport Way (there is one of those on-demand lighted crossing areas from the north sidewalk and bike path to the trailhead).  There are places to lock your bike.  The two-porta-potties (clean, but not hospital clean) were functional, and people were using the parking lot.    

By the way, by knowing all of the main and side trails, hiking on Cougar Mountain can be very diverse in terms of types of trails, forest habitat types, peak-a-boo views, etc.  We enjoyed the cold, windy, moisture laden clouds on the upper 300 or 400 feet of this mountain (‘peak’ is at 1,486 ft) and the much less windy and warmer air on the lower two-thirds.  All streams had strong, but very clear flowsl

When I first began using this trail system, rarely except in the upper part of the figure 8 (easily accessible from the Harvey Manning Trailhead), would I encounter someone.  When I did, they were often as surprised as I was.  Now this new trailhead, and access from other locations in addition to the Harvey Manning Trailhead, will assure far greater use. Ideal.  A selfish loss for me, a huge gain for everyone, and for my and other’s carbon footprint a gain.  Good nearby hiking accessible by bus in the summer, and may be year round. 

Between storms and during the Seahawks game would be a good time to retreat to one of many favorite hikes.  Drove to the Harvey Manning Trailhead with very little traffic. As I approached the NW corner of the Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park, I could see a clear, low-elevation demarcation above which all was white.  So much better than smoke!

The restrooms were moved in 2021 to the ‘upper’ parking area as that area served the outdoor learning activities associated with this park. All are porta-potties; all are frequently serviced.

My route (Figure 1C) would start by walking up the road to the ‘summit’ of Anti-Aircraft (1,486 ft).  The road was covered with debris, mostly leaves, small branches, moss, and lichens, from the recent storms. Took the Lost Beagle Trail to the Shangri La Trail, encountered three boisterous runners going in the opposite direction, two older women walking their dogs, and then no one else all the way down this trail, across on the No Name Trail to its junction with the Surprise Creek Trail where there was single hiker.  Took what was labeled the Military Ridge Trail to a series of junctions near a playground – sports field on the north end of the Talus Complex (Figure 2 top).   There were several trail junctions at this point, one heads northwest and has a sign (Figure 1A) indicating that it was mapped and described by Yean Kim from Boy Scout Troop 336 for an Eagle Scout project (see below).  A couple hundred feet later, there is a sign (Figure 1B) indicating that one is in a Natural Resource Preservation Areas of the City of Issaquah and a junction.  I took the trail to the left and reached Newport Way NW shortly.  The right is perhaps the Precipice Bottom Trail.  The last 100 feet of the trail that headed left, and which followed an old logging road, was the most challenging part of the entire hike – two very slippery large, old bigleaf maple stems and then almost a class 3 scramble over three large rocks (class 2 when dry).   These obstacles have been present for at least 4 years when I first discovered these other trails.

The down-hill part of the hike ended and the up began with a walk-up Newport Way to the Big Tree Ridge Trail trailhead.  This area has been closed since just before the pandemic with construction on Newport Way and then the promise of a formal trailhead with parking appeared on signage as the street construction was ending.  The signage said (and is still present) that this new trailhead would be open in the fall of 2021.  As bottom part of Figure 2 illustrates, the construction has just begun.  Perhaps by the fall of 2023.  The return and up-hill hike involved the Big Tree Ridge Trail, the Red Cedars Trail, the Surprise Creek Trail, and the Shangri La Trail to the Harvey Manning Trail Head.  I called home, got in the car, turned on the radio: the Seahawks had just scored, and it was SH 31, Cardinals 21, which turned out to be the final score.   

There were more downed trees versus people encountered on this hike 14 to 11 (and three well behaved dogs).  Most of the downed logs were red alder and had been dead before they were blown over; there was one living black cottonwood and a living red alder and Douglas-fir.  The last two were on the lower half of the Big Tree Ridge Trail and had been freshly cut with a chain saw.  All were easily crossed, except for the two large, very slippery logs.  No wildlife seen, birds heard, weather very cool with increasing cloud cover over the Cascades.  A nice walk.

Eagle Scout Kim has a tour script and an audio recording associated with the Scan Me Icon: (1) A three-page, single space document that orients one to the area, its trails, and its natural history.  All his points are well documented with some 22 urls. (2) There is an audio recording.  Both can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/1vpGBWMUFlFIEQsobpFJGnNSEsM0o-Ukc?usp=sharing__;!!K-Hz7m0Vt54!gJLW1MGp9JhW2AG-j-YlmC1WnAa0GZL_MLZxKOIdd_ooLSD-xmJU1qBsXXcbeB7D5iXXE6WtYeRU_Bre_mjfGU3l$ .  His trail signage is excellent (Figure 1A). 

When I retired, I assumed that trips to the mountains would be instantly more frequent and more focused on optimum mountain conditions, whether for vistas or deep powder or avoidance of crowds.  Yesterday, the warmest day of the year so far, represented a more typical example of when I find myself already scheduled when such a perfect day arises.  So sandwiched between the end of one scheduled event (ended at 1:OO pm) and the beginning of another (began at 5:15 pm), I took off following a short acknowledgement to the traffic gods and made it at 2:00 to the Harvey Manning parking lot and trailhead near the top of Anti-Aircraft peak.  Realizing that traffic back home would likely be terrible, I gave myself 1.5, may be 1.75 hours, and then mentally mapped a route with multiple early turn-around points.  Traffic was surprisingly light going home.

What a wonderful afternoon and what a great hike (more on that later). 

There is some minor re-surfacing road work occurring on SE Cougar Mountain Drive.  Once through the gate for the park, the dirt road has some potholes and ruts, but only a deterrent to straight line driving.  The parking area had almost a dozen cars.  The single, somewhat less than level porta-potty is located above the small parking area associated with the large field/meadow (before COVID, there were two, at least one of which was ADA, at the main parking area). 

The hike: took the surface road to the ‘summit’, the short connector trail through the fence to the Lost Beagle trail.  Down the Lost Beagle Trail to a series of short junctions, then the Shangri La Trail to the No Name Trail, to the Surprise Creek Trail, to the Precipice Top Trail, part-way down the Big Tree Ridge Trail, a quick break, back to the Red Cedars Trail.  The Red Cedars Trail was taken to the Shangri La Trail, side trip to viewpoint, and back to the parking lot (made the car with 5 minutes to spare).

It was warm; I could hear insect activity and feel the heat of the sun.  I realized that this was a special day.  The sky was clear; the sun’s elevation angle was high, almost 50^o S (summer solstice maximum is 66^o and the winter minimum is 19^o), and for the much of the deciduous and mixed evergreen-deciduous forests of Cougar Mountain, the overstory was leafless.  This is the time of year when stands of forest trees have the lowest leaf area indices (LAI, measured as the single-sided surface area of foliage above an equal area of ground below and expressed as m²/m². Many PNW forests have LAIs greater than 6; that is like six leaves or needles stacked on top of each other, but often spread over tens of vertical meters).  Why is LAI so important?  It is is important as it drives carbon, energy, nutrient, and water cycles in forest ecosystems.  Why is LAI so low in the early spring?  First, there is no new foliage.  Second, trees have blown over during the winter and there has been branch loss.  Third, during last summer’s heat wave and drought, many trees shed some or lots of their existing foliage.  As a result, the amount of light (and heat) reaching the forest floor was unusually high on this early spring day.  A truly unique experience.

This was a day of great biological activity, and this activity was easily witnessed.  Understory plants were flourishing in this bright, warm environment.  Leaves of bigleaf maple, black gooseberry (or prickly currant), bleeding heart, coltsfoot (Petasites frigidus), June plum, Pacific waterleaf, red elderberry, red-flowering currant, red huckleberry, salmonberry, stinging nettle, vanilla-leaf, vine-maple, western trillium, and many others were either fully emerged or rapidly emerging.  Single fronds of bracken fern and multiple fronds of lady fern were sprouting from the ground.  There were flowers on big-leaf maple, bitter cherry, bleeding heart (only at lower elevations), coltsfoot, red alder, red-flowering currant, salmonberry, and western trillium.  The flowers of June plum were already desiccated, and seeds were forming.  On many of the recently broken branchlets of Douglas-fir on the forest floor, there were swollen male cones.

On a more typical overcast day, differences from one forest type to another are muted.  Not so yesterday.  There were spectacular transitions from bright bigleaf maple/red alder stands, often with single tree or small islands of evergreens, to pure evergreen forests.  This transition was especially spectacular along the Precipice Top Trail and to a lesser extent on the Red Cedars Trail.  The seasonal stream along the Precipice Top Trail was full of water and provided nice background noise that soon became the white noise of I-90 especially on the Big Tree Ridge Trail.

Perfect hike, but reflecting the reality of retirement.

Entered the park via Big Tree Ridge Trail. Looped Red Cedars, Surprise Creek, Shangri La, Protector, Tibbetts Marsh, West Tibbetts Creek, No Name Trail, Precipice Top, and then back out Big Tree Ridge. About 5 miles total.

Beautiful spring foliage! Ferns ferning, vine maple tinged with red, and some flowers around but I really just love seeing so many different layers and shades of green.