We started at the Bellevue Open Space trailhead on Highland Drive. I've hiked this trail many times without being aware it was called the Washout Way Trail, but I'm always willing to learn. This trail goes about 0.9 mile, including crossing under Forest Drive in a culvert, before connecting to the Coal Creek Trail about 1/4 mile from the Parkway trail head. It descends about 500 feet.

Recent heavy rain and wind mean almost the whole trail was covered with a thick layer of leaves. The trail is well designed and well maintained, with strategically-placed handrails and some stairs. I classify it as having minor obstacles only because there are spots, especially in the section east of Forest Drive, where it traverses steep slopes and is very narrow, even for a single walker. Especially with the fresh layer of wet leaves, you need to watch your step.

Nice afternoon break after 1.5 inches of rain this morning. This loop starts right from our house. It was fun to see Coal Creek and tributaries flowing with force. The fall color is also looking very good now.

8.6 miles, 1300 ft

Mushroom pics to balance the dozens of beautiful high alpine fall hike reports today. I'm on call for work so was stuck in the lowlands.  This was a perfect hike for 15 yo Ms Maddy. In the 29 years of walking Coal Creek, I believe this is the best that I've seen for mushrooms.

This report is about the Coal Creek Natural Area. This is not part of Cougar Mountain, but there is no separate listing. The Coal Creek Natural Area is a Bellevue City park (link to Park's webpage for Coal Creek Natural Area). We started at the Coal Creek Natural Area parking lot on Coal Creek Parkway. From the parking lot, there's a concrete walkway that goes under Coal Creek Parkway and provides access to Lower Coal Creek trail and other trails which head north and are west of Coal Creek Parkway. It seems that only local residents know about this access because unlike the trail complex on the east side of Coal Creek Parkway, we saw no one on these trails.  From the parking lot, it's about 1.6 miles to the north end of the trail (near 119th Ave SE). There are a number of side trails; so, more opportunity to add mileage.

Then, we returned to the parking lot and headed southward. There's a side loop that goes over a newly constructed bridge; then, reconnects with the main trail. From the main trail, we headed eastward on King County Neighborhood Trail which follows a lovely wooded creek drainage and passes under Forest Drive SE through a large pedestrian tunnel. We only went as far as the side trail, Washout Way trail, that had stairs leading into the adjacent neighborhood, before heading back to the parking lot.

This is a nice complex of trails. Not as crowded as nearby Cougar Mountain. There are portapottys at the parking lot trailhead.

We took WTA's suggestion to explore the Cinder Mine Trailhead with our 4.5yo and 1.5yo and had a great time.

Always use WTA's directions! Google knows where the Cinder Mine Trailhead is, but it doesn't know there's a parking lot or trail down the hillside, so directions to it will still take you to the main Coal Creek lot which is a few hundred yards away.

We did the mile-ish hike to the Coal Creek main parking lot and back via the trail and had a great time looking at the ferns and moss (while avoiding the stinging nettles everywhere) and learning about the history of Coal Creek.

Our 4.5yo had so. many. questions. about coal and mining, so it was a very educational trip! You get to see a mine's air shaft, plenty of debris from the past 100 years, and there are little bits of coal all over the place (we spent more time looking at the ground near the underwhelming little waterfall). We only found one of the cinders (we think) the trail is named after, but we didn't look very hard or go very far.

It's hard to believe the area was clear cut and a huge producer of coal for the entire west coast and Pacific Rim. We made sure he thought about who benefited from that mining, the negative impacts of coal on the environment, and the people who were displaced to get it as well.

It's a perfect trail for kids with enough interesting things to keep the grownups happy too!