Wildside Trail-De Leo Wall, Red Town

My 10-yr old son and I went out to explore the Cougar Mountain area with De Leo Wall as our destination. It was a gorgeous morning and my fleece stayed in my pack the entire day! I was a little apprehensive since I partially tore the ACL in my right knee, but this hike had enough up and down to test it out, but not so much that it got worn out.

The trails were open and well maintained with a few muddy spots. There were only two blow downs that we encountered and I am pretty sure that the King County guy that we kept running into had taken care of them. We made it up to the view point on De Leo wall with little difficulty as we had a really good (Green Trails) map to help us choose which path to take. The signage along the way was mostly good, however there were a few times we had to rely solely on the map.

After making it to the viewpoint and eating a warm lunch (my son wanted to pack the backpacking stove) we opted to back track down the trail to Far Country Falls. The falls were running and bit overgrown. The pictures didn't come out as nice as they looked in person. After that we ran out of time and decided to head back to the Red Town trailhead via the Red Town Trail.

The stop in the meadow/ballfield was nice, as was the big talus field and the leaf fossils, but my son and I will avoid the Red Town Trail in the future. It was more of a straight gravel road and less of a trail and kind of a boring walk.

The wildflowers were out and things were coming to life. We saw and identified (this being the key point) bleeding heart, trillium, the pink blossoms of salmon berry, and fresh green berries on huckleberry bushes. There were many other that we didn't identify. It was a nice day to be out and about.