Despite the rain and wind of the past few days, there are still lots of beautifully colored leaves on the trees - and the ground.  The glorious sunlight dancing through the leaves on a relatively warm day made for a perfect fall walk.  A half mile from the Red Town trailhead saw a big drop in the number of people seen.  Some interesting mushrooms were on display.  Everyone seemed to be in a happy mood.  There was no reason not to be out in the beautiful area.

This report is to announce a lost camera. It’s my daughter’s camera, and older model Canon PowerShot. It has flower pattered duct tape on one side. It may have fallen anywhere between the Rock Formations by the bottom of Quarry Trail, memorial for Brandon on Red Town Trail, the mining cart on Rainbow Trail and the picnic area by the parking lot. We searched around, but did not see it. Hoping a kind soul picked it up and reports it. 

A moderate walk to the "top" of Marshall's Hill, newer De Leo Wall trail skirts the wall so is much less steep.   The trails for the most part are like "freeways", wide and easy to follow.  There was one blow down or tree bent over the De Leo Wall trail near its intersection with the Indian Trail, probably can be crawled under but I choose to go over it with minor difficulty. 

There were numerous walkers on the trails but also many quite intervals.  The newer De Leo Wall trail avoids the steep down hill of the older trail.  I miss the old view point from the top of the "wall" but loved the gentler grade of the new trail.

It was a nice 4.2 mile or so round trail from the Red Town Trail Head.  Note: my I-phone suggested a 5 mile loop and the longer distance seemed more consistent with the time of the walk.

Explored the western most portion of Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park on this sunny 60 degree day. The trails had the right mixture of sun and shade, Coal Creek has its spring flow going, and wildflowers are blooming. The bulk of my course from the Red Town trailhead involved the Wildside, Marshall’s Hill, De Leo Wall, and Red Town trails. Offshoots included the De Leo Wall Viewpoint, meadow restoration project, and Rainbow Town and Bagley Seam connector trails. Didn’t notice any checker lilies, but was happy to see my first fawn lilies, one in the De Leo Wall area and then a whole patch in the meadow restoration area. They look just like avalanche and glacier lilies except their leaves are mottled. Also noticed one cardamine nuttallii, one paintbrush, western trilliums of all ages (with the younger ones pure white, aging pink ones, and one very red oldy), pink and red flowering currant, pink herb-robert, yellow evergreen violets, white and purple periwinkle, bleeding heart, salmonberry, oregon grape, pink purslane, and a couple interesting looking fungi. In addition to various birds I heard the songs of frogs when passing water pockets near the trail. Only two trail issues I believe worth noting. One involves what may be a small beaver dam on Coal Creek near the Ford Slope coal mining exhibit. There’s now quite a body of water that extends past and around a footbridge on the Wildside trail. Looks like previous hikers have put large sticks down to step on to get through the water/mud. Wetness level will depend on the day’s weather, but even today I needed to step on those sticks with my trail runners. The second issue was one particular tree that fell over the Marshall’s Hill trail. A new path was created through the debris around the root ball that most people won’t have an issue with, but there are some splintered wood that could scrape legs or snag pants. Overall, trails are great right now for hiking or running. This route was over 6 miles and over 1200 ft total elevation gain.

I'd read another trip report that Cougar Mtn waterfalls are in peak flow right now, so I mapped a run to hit Coal Creek Falls, Doughty Falls, and Far Country Falls - they were beautiful! 6.5 miles, about 1,500 ft elevation gain.

Red Town Trailhead parking was about 1/2 full when I arrived at 8:15am, and was full when I finished around 10:30.

The trails were in good condition, no blowdown, light mud here and there, no snow. Weather/temps were great. Spotted some skunk cabbage blooms. And, did I mention the falls were amazing?