Near 11:30 today, I parked at the Big Tree Ridge Trailhead and noted 5 cars, two of which left as I parked (see below, Tahoe arrived after I had begun hiking).  Weather was cloudy, misty, and the foliage and ground were damp.  The facility is clean, the signage is excellent, and the trail is in good condition with occasional very recent improvements in the bed and drainage off the trail.  Just before the Big Tree Ridge Trail reaches its upper junction, there was a considerable improvement and the formation of a new trail around the root-wad of a winter up-rooted large Douglas-fir tree that took the old trail bed with it. 

I made a series of figure eights as I wandered from the trailhead to the top and back -- I really enjoy the extraordinary vigor of the understory plants with Pacific waterleaf being the shortest, then Siberian miner's lettuce, leaves of colt's foot (vying with devil's club and bigleaf maple for having the largest leaf), and bleeding heart, then fragrant fringecup and piggy-back plant, then bracken, lady, and sword ferns, then stinging nettles (some reaching 6 feet), red currant, and salmonberry, then devil's club, and finally elderberry, hazelnut, vine maple -- so thick, lush, and green. There many other plants!

The streams are drying up.  The dog with me was able to find both running water and deep enough pools to drink from at three different points stretched and nicely spaced along our 7.82 mile hike.  We did something we should not have as we walked the connector trail between the Harvey Manning Park at Talus and the Big Tree trail on our descent (involved some ascent).  There is a lot of work to do on this trail before it will be open. For me, what was truly discouraging were the number of very old and large Douglas-fir, western hemlock, and especially large western red cedar that were blown down in early December.  If we examine our suburban and urban parks, they are really postage stamps on the original envelope of forests, meadows, and grasslands that made up the landscape of the Pacific Northwest.  Loss of these time and size monarchs from an already diminished pool is discouraging.

There is an interesting experiment occurring in the first part of the Big Tree Ridge Trail.  The first couple of hundred feet of vertical were previously spent in a relatively young and very dense second growth stand of red alder, bitter cherry, black cottonwood and bigleaf maple (originated mostly from stump sprouts).  Previous attempts (as well as natural occurrences) to increase the coverage by evergreen species (e.g., western redcedar) mostly failed as inadequate light and heavy herbivory killed them.  This winter the stand was thinned by at least 50% removal.  There is an amazing amount of down, but well-organized wood and woody debris.  I am interested to see how this treatment plays out (it would have been an excellent silvicultural exercise for UW students in SEFS, but they were not contacted).

The well organized wood from the silvicultural treatment and even the spot-wise and scattered, but much more impressive, the downed wood, branches, and needles from the wind-storm form an interesting threat.  These disturbances have potentially provided considerable fuel for a fire.  As the summer progresses and these and other fuels dry, a fire would start easily and with strong winds move rapidly.  I have not seen much discussion of this potential for the wind-stormed damaged forests of the Puget Sound Area.

For a plant nerd, this hike rivals subalpine and alpine and eastside hikes.  However, context makes the others win almost every time.

Ps: A Tahoe with California plates had two of its right side windows broken completely.  No other cars had damage in the trailhead lot.

Hiked this trail today with a friend.  We started at the Big Tree Ridge TH, hiking up the series of switchbacks up the trail that eventually connected to Red Cedars Trail.  The trail flattened up a bit once we reached Surprise Creek and Shangri La Trails.  We reached Harvey Manning TH aka Anti Aircraft Peak TH and had a snack at a picnic table.  Trail conditions were good and unremarkable.  The signage is also clear and well marked at the junctions.  Noted that Precipice Bottom Trail is still closed is still closed d/t storm damage to a bridge.  We spotted a cool colored banana slug and a snail.  Some wild flowers are in bloom.  We also ran into a WTA led youth trail crew working on tread on the way back to Big Tree TH and said hi to my fellow trail crew folks.  Looking forward to explore more of the Cougar Mt. trail system in the future.  Happy trails!

**Check out vlog link to my Youtube channel below

Another perfect Day in the alps. Had to stay close to home because I'm on call for work. This works out great since there's good cell coverage everywhere. 

Everything is lush and as green as can be. Not at all crowded since there's no outward views.

I joined a WTA work party at Cougar Mountain today. We started at the Harvey Manning Trailhead. I arrived around 8 AM and parking was plentiful. There are privies available and they are in decent shape. Our work for the day mostly involved improving drainage on the Lost Beagle Trail, with one group working on a problematic muddy area and the other securing a culvert with rocks and gravel. When the work party ended around 2 PM, the parking area was full. 

After the work party, I took advantage of the good weather and decided to hike a bit. From the parking area, my hike was a counterclockwise loop involving all of the trails named in the title of this trip report. All of the trails are in good shape and are mostly dry with no blocking obstacles of note. This route has a good variety of up and down with flat stretches of trail. It's worth noting that the Harvey Manning Trailhead is the highest trailhead on Cougar Mountain so pretty much everything is down from the trailhead and of course, everything is up on your return trip. My loop hike took about 2 hours and Strava noted the distance to be about 4.5 miles. I also noticed that the bugs were out in force today and were generally abundant whenever we stopped moving during the work party but were not bad while I was hiking. So I guess the key is to keep moving! 

All the trails are well signed but it's always good to have a map handy. There is a large map at the trailhead you can take a picture of to reference during your hike or you can download one at this link: 

https://aqua.kingcounty.gov/gis/web/VMC/recreation/BCT_CougarMtn_brochure.pdf

April 3, 2025: Update: All down logs/trees have been dealt with.  Other than some mud, the trails are in excellent condition.  Flowers of colt's foot are in their prime as are yellow violets; June plum, miner's lettuce, and salmon berry are beginning to flower.The replanting has begun near the trailhead.

March 25: I have enjoyed this trail complex three times this late winter/early spring (March 7, 14, and 25).  Between March 14 and 25, I was surprised to find three very large trees down and across the trail at about 0.85 miles in the Big Tree Ridge trail (last switchback before the flat section before the junction with the Precipice trail) (see Figure 1).  It was not until I got above this obstacle that I was able to unravel how it happened and why there was such a complex of stems and branches at the point in the switchback where I first encountered this new and recent tree fall.  A very large Douglas-fir on the east side of the trail along the relatively flat ridge top had gone over and taken two large western hemlock trees, situated on the west side and down slope, including their root wads over so that three robust sections of each tree's crown was now embracing this section of the trail.  As I had a large dog on a leash, I opted to bushwack up the steep hillside rather than have dog, leash, and me fighting the stems and branches.  Raised the old heart rate!  I had assumed that all the big tree damage, done during the bomb cyclone, was in the past (see Figure 2).  It wasn't.

In spite of these obstacles (nothing kills a walking rhythm liked down trees or high water flows in streams), it was a great hike on a very warm spring day with lots of flowers emerging (especially Colt's Foot and June Plum).

The other interesting change that has occurred and that I first witnessed on my March 7 hike (previous last hike had been on November 15, 2024) is all the deciduous tree thinning that has occurred in the bottom 0.3 miles of the trail.  The obvious reason is the endeavor to add species and structural diversity to this relatively young, dense red alder -- bigleaf maple forest (with some black cottonwood and bitter cherry).  I wish that they had not cut down the robust bitter cherry tree (these are becoming scarcer without fire or clearcuts) and I think they are going to find that when the remaining hardwoods leaf out that there is more shade that they had hoped for (see Figure 3).  Some suggestions to deal with the shade, plant western hemlock, grand fir, and in the most humid places, but not in constant water, Sitka spruce or if you going to stay with just Douglas-fir (big mistake if you are seeking species diversity), cut more hardwoods down.  You could also girdle trees that would prevent leaf retention and result in wood that came down at a later time (3 to 10 years).  However, there is a surprising amount of carbon on the forest floor now -- as it decomposes, the decomposers will be very strong competitors with the newly planted trees for nitrogen.