I checked out the Bear Ridge Trail for the first time today. It's a moderate workout and a nice section of the park running alongside a creek with a few peek-a-boo views.

The main feature/attraction is "fantastic erratic," a large fern and moss covered glacial boulder - pretty cool! - and there's also a bit of a view here looking towards Tiger Mountain.   

I hiked this as a lollipop, starting on Bear Ridge and then connecting up to Shagri La, then Harvey Manning, then looping back down on the West Tibbett's Creek Trail. The trail is in great shape. 

A note on parking: I parked at the Talus Bridge Trailhead which is inside the Talus development. It looked like there was just a couple spots available for the public to park by the trailhead but then again, after parking in one of them, I noticed people in a couple of the surrounding houses looking out their windows at me. This made me second guess parking there and consider people in the community might frown on it, I'm not sure ...

I also hiked down to the Bear Ridge Trailhead on Route 900. Here there's also limited parking (space for 3 or 4 cars) but it's outside of the community. You can also easily hike down from the Harvey Manning Trailhead. 

Today I went on an amazing winter walk on Cougar Mtn from Sky Country TH. This was Cougar Mtn at it winters best!  The snow laden trees made it a winter wonderland.  I arrived just after 10:00AM and it was 24 degrees. The roads getting to Sky Country TH  on Cougar Mtn are bare and wet except the right turn off Cougar Mtn Way to /Sky Country TH.  It had compact snow easily drivable with AWD vehicles. I made a 5.5 mile  clockwise loop following these trails: Clay Pit, Coyote Creek, Klondike Swamp, Lost Beagle, Million Dollar View, Shangri La, Tibbett’s Marsh, Harvey Manning, Cougar Pass, Clay Pit Road, East Fork Trail, Fred’s Railroad, By Pass Trail, Cave Hole and Old Man’s Trail back to Sky Country TH. Not too many folks have ventured out on the trails yet - Some of the time I followed XC ski tracks, others snowshoe tracks and other just foot steps.  On two shorter sections of trails I had to break trail which was a little more challenging.  The snow was the heaviest near the Million Dollar View Pagoda and the Shangri La trail.  The trees are so laden with snow in places that both trees and shrubbery touched the ground.  I would estimate I had to bend over 40+ times to scoot under low branches and easily step over or walk around 10+ downed trees.  I just tallied that up to the fun of walking in the snow.  More wildlife sightings than usual today - juncos, wrens, towhees, chickadees and a Douglas squirrel.

Dressing in layers was the right way to go for me. I wore smart wool long johns under fleece lined leggings,  gaiters and 2 fleece lined tops under a puff vest. I actually had to unzip layers a couple times.  I also had foot and hand hotties so neither ever got cold.

It was 26 degrees and 1:00PM when I arrived back at the TH.  Another fabulous day to be out in nature.

Did a loop starting from the Talus end of the Shangri La trail, followed the Bear Ridge trail to the West Tibbetts Creek Trail to the Cougar Pass Trail to the Harvey Manning Trail all the way to the Harvey Manning trailhead and then back out to Talus directly via the Shangri La Trail. The trails are snow-covered in their entirety right now. This TR is for the non-Shangri La sections hiked.

I did not see any other hikers on any of the non-Shangri La sections of trail today. The Bear Ridge trail had at least two people pass today as there were some fresh boot prints. This short section of trail had no obstacles and the tread had good grip.

Turning right onto the West Tibbetts Creek trail, there were some buried boot prints from yesterday, but the trail had seen no human travelers since the snowfall ended overnight - there were however deer, rabbit and coyote(?) prints all along this section of trail. There were a number of sections of vegetation encroaching significantly on the trail due to the weight of the snow - in a couple of sections it was a bit bushwhacky as a result - if you’re thinking of hiking this right now you should be comfortable with walking ducked down for 15-20 foot sections at a time. The log bridge over the creek had decent grip due to the cold/dry snow however it also required a bit of ducking & plowing through branches to cross.

Once at the junction of the Tibbetts Creek, Tibbetts Marsh and Protector trails, there were prints from one other hiker today which continued all the way up to junction with the Cougar pass trail. There were a few short sections of low branches here as well but nothing particularly bothersome.

The Cougar Pass/Harvey Manning trail section of this loop had the worst conditions. There are several blowdowns, including two where the tops of large trees have many branches across the trail with no easy detour. I had to crawl on elbows & knees to negotiate these two, so if you’re not up for some free tough mudder training, you may want to avoid this trail section for now. At least the snow meant there was no actual mud involved. There are also a handful of easier to negotiate fallen trees, one requiring a bit of a detour but with an obvious path. From the Lost Beagle/Harvey Manning/Tibbetts Marsh junction, the rest of the trail is obstacle-free.

The West Tibbetts/Cougar Pass/Harvey Manning sections of this loop had about 6 inches of fluffy snow, deeper in some hollows where the wind had deposited more. Most of the way there was good grip but it is worth being careful with foot placement as there are some small buried logs here and there that are not easily visible with the snow cover and are easy to trip or slip on.

Wow, look how many trails I did today! Haha. I tried to mark them in the order I did them... But basically I came in Bear Ridge and out Shangri-La, looping all around the park and hitting up Doughty and Coal Creek Falls. I wish I had gotten Far Country Falls, too, but I didn't really plan too much before leaving this morning. Oh well, next time... According to Gaia, I did about 11 miles today.

When I woke up at 5 this morning there was only a dusting of snow around my place but in the next couple hours before sunrise it began to snow HEAVILY and Cougar ended up getting close to 6 inches in some of the more open areas. It was lovely to walk through all the light fresh powder... I have really good boots that kept my feet nice and dry, and it wasn't too slippery. However, the day was not without hazards. I kept hearing sharp cracks as the weight of heavy snow caused branches to come crashing down. There were some small trees and large branches down on trails across the park, nothing impossible to cross but it will take a little work clear the trails after the snow is gone. Also, there's a bridge crossing on Tibbett's Creek that was awkward to cross due to snow loaded branches hanging low over it. 

One cool thing I saw- there were many strands of spider webs hanging down that had caught individual snowflakes on them so they were just dangling threads of snowflakes. Unfortunately I am not a good enough photographer to capture something like that, but it was amazing!

Otherwise just a beautiful snowy day in the forest... I love living in Issaquah!

We arrived around noon today, Sunday, and quickly found a parking spot in the large lot. We were excited to find a system of trails without snow, and upon arrival quickly progressed to Cougar Pass. Terrific signage! The fog was brilliant in the way it blended with the sunshine and poured through the trees.

The trails were clear but mucky with decaying leaves. Many trail drains were full-- no surprise-- with some standing water on trail a few inches-deep to highlight the bounty of rain we've recently received. The backs of our calves were freckled with mud on the way out. A couple trees are down, but no problems stepping over for us or our pup! We encountered many folks near trailheads, and significantly fewer the farther out we were.