We did a quick after-work hike up to Holder Knob.  There were no other cars in the parking lot. There were nice trail maps at the parking lot and toilets.  We had the trail to ourselves.  The trail is well maintained and dry due to 55 days+ of no rain!  Lots of ripe blackberries.  Lots of horse manure since it's open to horses too, so watch your step. We walked up the Holder Ridge trail, went to the left around the loop to Holder Knob.  We checked out the horse picnic area, continued around the loop, then back to the parking lot via Road A.  Overall, a great hike if you only have about an hour to get out there!  

I headed to Taylor Mountain hoping to explore an area that's new to me and get at least ten miles in. Based on the map, it looks like there's a nice loop that you can make by linking the Holder Creek and Holder Ridge trails with some of the gravel roads. Unfortunately after about a mile on the Holder Creek trail, it ends at the creek. There's an unmaintained trail that goes up the riverbank, but it's clearly not a continuation of the trail. It's best to heed the advice of a little girl I passed who said "you probably don't want to go there." I tried crossing the creek to a little island, but couldn't see where the trail continued on the other side, so I backtracked to try out Holder Ridge. The rest of the run had fewer navigational mishaps. The combination of rolling hills without a lot of gain and smooth-ish horse trails made it possible to actually get up to "running" pace, which was nice. In certain damp sections of trail, the horses have made things quite messy, but they're not difficult to get through. The walk up Holder Knob had just the briefest glimpses of Rainier, giving me hope that there might be a clearing at the top with some views (there wasn't). Continued on down Whiskey Still and Boot and took a left down Carey Creek. There's a short creek crossing on Carey Creek and a major blow down just west of the SE trailhead, but I didn't have any issues navigating it. There were some riders past it as well, so I assume horses can manage as well. From the SE corner, in headed back to the trailhead via the gravel roads which made for some more nice running and some pleasant conversation with a passing rider. Just a little over ten miles on the day and 1400' of gain.

Great trail system for those wanting a long or short hike. Peek a boo views of Rainier & Tiger Mtn's. Took Holder knob to Whiskey Still and then came down the gravel road to parking lot, roughly 5 miles.

This was our first time to this King County Park, a nice addition to the Issaquah Alps. The trails are open to all and we saw about five horse trailers at the parking lot. No mountain bikes but some tracks indicating bikes had been on the trails recently. The trail to Holder Knob is in decent shape but very muddy in places. Horse traffic was evident and the trail was chewed up in spots due to recent rains and the horse use. The loop we did was about 4 miles in length and there were views of Mt. Rainier and the Cascades from our lunch stop at the "Horse Picnic" area. It is about 2.5 miles from the parking area to this lunch spot (with picnic table). After having lunch and enjoying a view of Rainier we headed down toward Road A. The map shows the route to be a trail but we found a road for about 3/4 of the remaining distance. We then took Road A back to our transportation. With sun and mild temperatures this was a great break from the Monsoons of this winter.

Trail ran using good map from King County Site http://www.kingcounty.gov/services/parks-recreation/parks/trails/backcountry-trails/taylor-mtn.aspx Started at parking lot just after Issaquah-Hobart rd goes under hwy 18. Did Holder Ridge->Holder Knob->Whiskey Still->Boot->Road F->Returned on Road A. About 6 Miles total. A mile or two of uphill to start and then flat and rolling. Trail was amazingly void of mud; kudos to whoever is maintaining this trail. Only the boot trail had some significant muddy spots. The rest all had just a few muddy areas that were easy to go around. Most of trail was dry which was a surprise considering all the recent rain