We had a great hike on Cougar Mountain today! There were quite a few people parked out on the street even before the trailhead opened when we arrived at 10am. The weather was perfect and the trails were dry. There were quite a few people at the Coal Creek Falls, but out around the park there we saw people less often. There was a nice bench at the Far Country Lookout that made for a nice place to sit and eat. Overall a great walk for beginners like us, and lots of options to choose from depending on how far you want to go.

We parked at Red Town trailhead,crossed Lakemont Boulevard, and followed the Coal Creek Trail to other end at Coal Creek Parkway and returned via the same route for roughly a 5.6 mile hike. The trail is in great shape save for a little bit of mud and standing water about .5 mile from the Coal Creek Parkway trailhead. Otherwise, this is a very pleasant trail with moderate ups and downs along the way. The Primrose Trail, which connects to the Coal Creek Trail and brings you alongside Coal Creek, appears to be open after having been closed the last couple of years for repairs. We saw lots of critters along the way today including roughly two dozen snails, an owl, and a caterpillar. There were lots of opportunities to take pictures which made for a "snail's pace" while hiking today.

Started our loop around 8.00 am from Red Town trailhead and went along indian trail. Took the shy bear trail junction - deceiver trail - going onto quarry trail around the shy bear pass and through coal creek falls trail and then cave hole trail, finishing with a small loop towards military road to back to the trailhead. We only saw few joggers on most of the trails - saw many people only on the coal creek trail. All through the trail was nice dense trees and well maintained trails. We saw three waterfalls, one along the Indian Trail, deceiver trail and the coal creek trail (this one was the best waterfalls, lots of great views). The trails had water on them at many places, but it was all mostly just flowing water and very shallow - so not really an issue.

We started the trail from the Newcastle-Coal Creek Road end. The trail is around 2.8 miles one way - so the round trip to come back to the parking was around 5.5 miles (not sure if we missed some loop or something as the details say round trip is 3 miles). The trail had lots of trees, water flowing near for most part, small wooden bridges, the ground was slightly damp for most part and had mud holes for some small portions. There was a nice small water fall in the beginning and a small pond at the end.