We arrive at the trail late morning by our standards (8am) and the parking lot was already filling up. We quickly found out that most of these cars were for groups of trail runners. The first portion of the trail doesn't have much to view. Some interesting trees, a small creek and that was about it.

Once we got to the wilderness peak loop, the scenery became much more exciting with bridges, mud & water on the trails and steep lookouts. We went north (the left turn) when entering the loop and were glad doing so. The route to the peak, while steep, is much less painful than if we had taken the right which is filled with numerous switchbacks.

A point of caution, the trails are not very wide and we have two ex-large dogs (100lbs and 150lbs). Getting passed by trail runners was a little difficult at times because they would just suddenly appear and you didn't have much time to move out of their way. 

We got back to our car around noon and the parking lot was completely filled with several cars driving in circles. So I definitely recommend getting their early. All in all, the hike was enjoyable but not on my list of favorites and probably not a repeat. 

I mapped a route on my GPS app because I wanted to cover the larger area of Cougar Mountain. While the mountain is well signed, there is no official one large route to follow. So I combined several trails: Red Town, Cave Hole, Coyote Creek, Lost Beagle, Harvey Manning's, Fred's Railroad, Shy Bear, Deceiver, Far Country, Indian Trail and back to a parking lot along Red Town trail. My total mileage was 8.54 miles and time 2hrs37min. I made minimal breaks, as this trail is not difficult (elevation ascent 1,200ft). I wanted long, and I got long.

No snow, no bugs. It started to drizzle at about halfway point, then it stopped. Nothing too exciting, a few river crossings, and a Million Dollar View (plus old pergola) at Cougar Mountain Peak. Since it has been wet in past week or so, there were several creek crossings or water running down the trail, and sometimes only way through was going through the water. There were several fallen trees, some of them easy to cross, some required a little more thinking or climbing over/under.

Along the Indian trail, you will come near some small falls, and they are definitely worth the short detour. I did not, but I wish I made the detour, as there was not much other excitement along this 8.5-mile trail. But I got some solitude and a morning workout that I was after.

See my route: https://www.gaiagps.com/datasummary/route/fe31400bde5f329a3cf98e0a3e4fa960/?layer=GaiaTopoRasterFeet

I hiked a nice long loop on Squak and Cougar on all the trails listed above, connecting the two with Issaquah city streets. 

Squak's blowdowns from the fall/winter storms have been sawed so the trails are clear and in very nice condition, aside from the typical muddy spots. Margaret's Way trail has some mud on the "traverse" section, which is typical. It isn't worse than usual though. About 1.5 miles uphill from the parking lot is a side trail to a nice new viewpoint. It's grassy and has a big sturdy bench to sit on. It is right next to someone's house, but hey! It's nice to have another viewpoint option that's a shorter hike, especially for when we want to take company on a local hike with a point-of-interest at the end. It's less than 1/2 the distance that going to Debbie' View would be (which is nearly 4 miles via Margaret's Way and 2.5-3 depending on your route from Mountainside Drive). 

There was a man working on the Wilderness Peak trails with a leaf blower :/ Unfortunately he wasn't out with a chainsaw clearing the annoying blowdown on the Wilderness Peak trail. It's at that height where a larger person would have trouble going under it and going over it is annoying too. There are also a handful of blowdowns on the Harvey Manning trail (previously the Anti Aircraft Peak trail). Nothing difficult, but could use some clearing. 

:) 

This cloudy Saturday a dozen hikers from our hiking group took a loop hike to see three waterfalls on Cougar Mountain.

We started from Sky Country Trailhead at 10 am. The parking lot for hikers was almost full, but the lot for horse trailers was almost empty. We started out on Old Man's Trail, Cave Hole Trail, and Coal Creek Falls Trail to see Coal Creek Falls. Then we hiked Quarry Trail, Indian Trail and a short side trail to see Far Country Falls. Then we took Far Country Trail to go up to Far Country Lookout. We had lunch there and moved onto Shy Bear Trail, Deceiver Trail and a short side Trail to see Doughty Falls. Finally we took Long View Peak Trail, Shy Bear Trail, Fred's Railroad Trail, and Clay Pit Road to return to our cars.

It took us four hours to cover 7.7 miles with 1200 feet total elevation gain at a social pace enjoying conversation with each other and with frequent stops at trail junctions to make sure no one was lost. 

The weather was cloudy with a few sprinkles. The temperature was between 42 and 44 F. It was a pleasant hike close to home.

The trails were often muddy and as reported one week ago by daniemblem there were large downed trees just east of Doughty Falls on Deceiver Trail. But we all managed to go over them. We met several trail runners, hikers, and dog walkers with/without leashes.

See the link to my GPS track below.

Hiked to 3 waterfalls today via trails above for a 7.5 mile hike.  Trails in good conditions considering all the rain and snow we've had.  There were a few blow downs along trails and one large fir to scramble over on Far Country trail, but quite doable.  All in all, good hike, impressive photo ops at waterfalls, with good trail conditions.