I did a loop hike, starting up the road from the new parking lot and continuing on the Whiskey Still trail, Boot trail, Sherwood Trail, and on to the Elk Ridge trail, which I hiked down about 3/4 of a mile before turning around. From there I went up the first section of the Hermit trail, then turned left and looped back on the road all the way to Holder Knob. I returned by the Holder Knob trail. It was an 8.7 mile hike with about 1500 feet cumulative elevation gain. The trails were totally snow-free, and the sun was shining through the light cloud cover. But with recent rains, the trails were fairly muddy, especially given the horse traffic on them. Both the Boot Trail and the Elk Ridge Trail had extensive muddy sections. The worst, though, was the upper section of the Holder Knob trail, above the first lookout. I had seen a large work party working on this trail in early January, but it looks as though they didn't get beyond the lower part of the trail, which is in reasonably good shape. The upper section, though, is almost one continuous mud field. Perhaps with drier weather it will improve, but I hope the work party has scheduled a return date for this section of the trail.

Today was a fine day to roam about King County's Taylor Mountain Forest. Starting from a less used access point on the south side of the park, I first rambled up the Elk Ridge Trail, which like most trails in the park gets a lot of use by horses, not so much by hikers. This trail had seen a fair amount of recent work, and was not too muddy or churned up by the horse traffic. Some beautiful old second growth forest here with large trees. The upper part of the trail was completely rerouted/ reconstructed by the WTA and is in even better shape, although horse damage (churned up mud) is apparent in a few spots. I noticed quite a few new trail signs marking the trails, which is quite a help in navigating the complex network of trails here. The Elk Ridge Trail eventually ends at one of the park service roads (Road H, I think). I followed this road/trail upward toward Taylor Mountain. The road, like most in the park, is rarely used by vehicles and is a pleasant walk, free of mud, with plenty of nice warm sun beaming through the leafless trees. Increasing amounts of snow appeared along the road as I climbed. At length I left the service road and followed the "Boundary Trail", marked by a nice user-made sign. This trail allows one to connect with the vast road network in the Raging River Forest, which used to be private lumber company land but is now owned by the DNR and protected from development (yay!). Unfortunately this trail, an old route created by equestrians, was a brushy, gloppy mess of hoof-churned snow and mud. Classic Taylor Mountain. The only thing good about this trail, apart from the handsome sign, is that it is short. Upon reaching a higher old logging road, I decided it was time to start descending. I followed the road downhill and eventually found the top end of the Knee Knocker Trail, which led me back to Taylor Forest lands. The Knee Knocker Trail was rebuilt by the WTA some years ago, but time and horse traffic has not treated it well. The trail features long stretches of hoof-churned glop , although nothing as bad as the Boundary Trail. To fix this trail, It would be good to lay down large amounts of gravel in the worst spots, possibly contained with turnpike structures. This trail eventually connects with an old road bed that is in much better shape. The road/trail makes a long level traverse, eventually connecting with Road H. I turned off on the Hermit Trail, which descends down an old road bed to connect with Road H at a lower level. The Hermit Trail has a hard tread surface and is in good shape. From the lower end of Hermit, I reconnected with Elk Ridge and followed that trail back to the car. All in all a pleasant day, despite the mud. The trails on Taylor Mountain, the Forgotten Issaquah Alp, tend to be very uncrowded especially on weekdays. If you can figure out the maze of horse trails and logging roads, there are some nice viewpoints in recent clearcuts to be found higher on the mountain. If you have a Garmin GPS, loading it with the free Northwest Topo map file that contains Northwest Trails Project data (see http://www.switchbacks.com/nwtrails/) can be a big help in finding your way around. Many of the Taylor Mountain trails have been mapped and included in the map data.

Heavy rain in the northern Cascades. Lighter rain down south. No good place to go. Gwen joined me for a less visited closer in hike. I first hiked the trails in the King County Taylor Mountain Park on 11-29-09. Kim an I did a short 3 mile trip. I came back on 1-09-10 for a longer 9 mile trip. I was really surprised to see that nearly six years had gone by without a return visit. This one was Gwen's idea. I was happy to explore more of the park's trails. We met in Bellevue then headed east. Off I-90 onto Highway 18, over Tiger Summit, and down to the Hobart exit. A left under the higheay and the parking is quickly on the left. Gwen heard that the parking lot was under construction. Indeed it is closed for several more months. In the mean time there is parking for a dozen or so cars just before the lot. A quick look to the construction shows a new outhouse. The gravel lot will possibly be paved as well. A sign pointed us to trails. We started up the Holder Ridge Trail. It was raining hard at Tiger Summit but it was temporarily dry as we headed out. This whole area was logged and most of the forest is deciduous at this point. That meant lots of leaves. Big maple leaves were all over the ground much of the day. Very thick near the start of our route. Before long the umbrella came out. Though wet it was a warm day, in the low to mid fifties. The trail climbs up in thin forest. I think there were a lot more views in 2009. A very short side trail led to a picnic table. Not the day to sit still long. Little in the way of views though the low dark clouds did not help. On my previous trip I took a photo of downtown Seattle. No signs of it this day. The route descends a bit to cross a small creek then climbs to a junction. From here we made a big loop before retracing the final bit to the car. We turned left and began to climb to the top of Holder Knob. Not much of a climb. The main trail contours around the top but a short side trail goes right to the top and quickly meets the main trail. We headed up. the top is a good sized flat area that is encased in trees and mostly brush. Not much of a view from here. There is another picnic table there. My 2010 photos showed views of Seattle, East Tiger, and Taylor Mountain. Not so much anymore. A few steps north and we were back on the Holder Knob Trail. The trail soon become an old road that is now very grassy. it continues around the Knob and drops down to Road A not far from the Holder Ridge Trail we started on. We crossed the road onto the Whiskey Still Trail. From here is was mostly downhill. After .70 miles we turned right onto the Mt. Beaver Trail. There area a lot of short trails and a map is very useful. Most but not all trails are signed. Another .60 miles and we reached the Carey Creek Trail. We turned left and follwed the creek. First we crossed the creek on a bridge. Most crossings have bridges. We soon met the first people of the day. In fact one dog and two folks on horseback. A few minutes later came a long runner with a dog. That was it for the entire day. We saw nobody else. One unique fact about the park is that there are some trails that go into the Cedar River Watershed. You must stay on trail but there is access. The Carey Creek Trail comes to a junction with Road G. SE 208th St. is in sight. With the main parking lot closed construction there were a lot of cars parked along the road here. Road G meets Road A and provides a fast way back to the main parking area where we started. Some of the trails in the park are marked on maps as closed from October 15 - April 15. A short way up Road G is the junction with the Elk Ridge Trail. We expected a sign for the seasonal closure. There was no sign. In fact, none of the seasonal closure trails we passed were signed as closed. On Tiger Mt. they are always signed when closed. With that in mind, the Elk Ridge Trail may be seasonally closed at any time. After many old roads and roads turned trails the Elk Ridge route is a real trail. In places there is evergreen forest. The route climbs slowly and steadily. This is still in the watershed with many signs to stay on trail. Near the high point on the trail we left the watershed. We stopped for a food and water break near the next junction. At about 1300' this was the high point of the trip. Gwen was in charge of the route and there were a lot of short trails that made up our whole route. We next took the Sherwood Trail for .50 miles to again reach Road A. This is a four way junction and we went across the road and continued on Road F. After only .15 miles The Boot Trail went off on the left. This took us on a half circle back to where we had earlier turned off on the Mt. Beaver Trail. The Boot Trail continues ahead and is now called the Whiskey Still Trail. Soon we were back at Road A where the Holder Knob Trail brought us earlier in the day. A short climb on the Holder Knob trail brought us to the junction with the Holder Ridge Trail. The rest of the way back was on the route we hike up in the morning. If solitude was the goal, we hit the jackpot. A trail so close to the cities should have had at least a few more folks even on a rainy day. Now for a few comments on Taylor Mountain County Park. It is not deep forest like nearby Squak, Tiger, and Rattlesnake. That is slowly changing however. The open clearcut I hiked through in 2009 is growing up. Over time it will be much better. There are a lot of roads or grassy old roads. A few are graveled and used by park workers to get to places in the park. More are well on their way to becoming trails. The number of trails makes it possible to select a number of different routes. Three miles, six miles, or more than ten miles. The choices are a but smaller when the seasonal trails are closed but there are still plenty of routes that can be cobbled together. My last two trips have covered the majority of routes but there are still a few places for me to explore. Thanks to the generally low elevation most trails will be snow free right through the winter. The map states that there are 30 miles of trails in the park. For the day we hiked about 10 miles with 1700' of gain. Not bad when the low point was 500' and the high point was only 1300'. I expect I will get back here a little more often in the future. Below are links to 25 annotated photos from the hike and a map of Taylor Mountain.

We attended a WTA Work Party to build the Elk Ridge Trail on Taylor Mountain. We met at the Taylor Mountain trailhead and drove part of the way up the access road, then carpooled further up the road to the Sherwood Trailhead. We headed into the forest on the Sherwood Trailhead, then made a left turn onto the Elk Ridge Trail. There is no shortage of mud, but a nice trail is taking shape. Jen was our Crew Leader, with ACLs Pete, Mike O, Darrell, Dick, Ben, Greg, and Angela. We also had volunteers from Habitat for Humanity getting their first trailwork experiences. It was nice to see a large crew on an inclement day. Our two projects were 1) spot improvements along the trail, such as filling in low spots or improving creek crossings and 2) refining a switchback. I joined Mike to work on a ford where a creek crossed the trail. We widened out the creek bed at that spot and laid down rocks to prevent erosion and encourage hikers to walk through the ford rather than step over it. It was a day of rock-gathering for me, from the fist-sized to the pebble-sized. We ended a little bit early due to the nasty weather and tailgated with cookies, homemade brownies, tea, and coffee.

Taylor Mountain is the "jewel in the crown of the King County park system", according to a WTA crew leader whose name won't be mentioned here. He may have been being a bit sarcastic, but with all the new trails being constructed, Taylor is getter better for hikers all the time. Still somewhat anarchic, the place reminds me of Cougar Mountain before it got gentrified. Trail signs are few and the local teenagers still treat Taylor Mountain as their personal ATV park. Horse riders are the major users of the trails, with the usual consequences for trail quality. Hikers are few and far between. A map of Taylor Mountain can be found on the Web: google "taylor mountain map king county" Here's the condition of some of the trails I hiked today. The Carey Creek Trail follows a lovely creek valley (though sunless and icy at this time of year). Horses have mucked up the tread, and I think parts of this trail are going to need a layer of gravel to withstand the hooves. The Elk Ridge Trail takes a fun, winding course through an exceptionally fine second growth forest. Again, it is horsey and muddy, and it will need extensive tread work to make it pleasant for hikers. The upper portion is sunny and there are even peeks at Mount Rainier. The steeply climbing Sherwood Trail is a horse-churned disaster. But flagging indicates that the trail crews are on the way to fix the problems. The Boot Trail has a hard hoof-resistant tread and is in good shape. Mountain Beaver Trail takes a beating from frequent horse use, but is in pretty good shape. It features a nice bridge over Carey Creek.