Lost in Lord Hill yet again! I'd heard that there was a new map out for the maze of trails in the park so I wanted to check out a few more trails.  Well there is, but very little signage to match the trail names. And so...     We decided to check out the trails on the west side of the park instead of our normal wander around aimlessly on some game/mtn bike trail on the east side. We started on the West side loop, ended up at the power station going nowhere, so headed back down, turned to maybe make a loop, and ended up at a dead end. Turned back, followed another path, dead end, turned and followed another path, dead end with a big red and white No Trespassing sign. The value of the map was, we could see which Wild Goose Chase trail we were deadended on and where to turn around. We did finally find the loop trail, and also a nice picnic table for lunch.  We  came out on the Main trail and headed down toward the river. IMHO skip the west side loop, really nothing interesting, no views and one pond, dried up today. We did see 2 deer tho. Once we headed down we hit some nice mossy woods and a  couple of ponds. Since we didn't have time for the river, at the grassy area we turned and headed up toward the Pipeline trail. This is a steep trail going up,slippery in spots. Because we wasted so much time farting around on the west side of the park, we didn't have time to check out Temple and Beaver ponds on the way back. Once we turned onto the Main trail to head back, the sky opened up and just dumped on us, thunder ligtning and hail. By the time we got back to the car we were totally soaked to the skin even with raingear.   My recommendation for this park, hike the Pipeline, check out the ponds, head down to the river, then wander back on the River trail to the Main trail.  Even tho there are maps at some of the main intersections, they do not show all the trails. Take your downloaded map for comparison. As myself and others have mentioned before, this park could seriously use more signage. 

Great morning ramble!  Took the horse entrance in, turned R on Startup, then R on Springboard, L on the road past the towers and down to turn L on West View Loop Trail, R on the small overgrown connector trail, L on South Loop trail, Right on West View, L on Ridgeside down to Meet Cutter. R on Meet cutter, followed River Trail cut-off all the way up to Crossroads Pond, then took Temple Pond trail, R at loop, and followed that to the back corner by Marsh Lake, then L along that back trail (don't know it's name). I somehow missed the Bald Hill trail and ended up following East Way trail back to the main Temple Pond loop. Turned R, and followed North Temple Pond Loop back to the Pipeline trail then Beaver Lake trail to Boardwalks and back to car in the parking area.  GPS said 5.5miles.  Ridgeside trail and East Way are pretty brushy and rough, but other then that it was smooth sailing : )

Took a nice couple hour day hike today, still fairly hot and dry. Mostly everything was normal as described in other trip reports but... discovered a great time to go hike this popular and often crowed park: during Seahawks games. Arrived at 2 pm to very uncrowded trails (game in progress) and left at 4 pm to lots of arrivals (game over). Just thought we'd share.

I've hiked Lord Hill several times in the past but never in late summer. I think hiking Lord Hill in the late summer is most ideal because the trails are completely dried out. In the early spring and late fall, the trails are muddy and wet. There are equestrian trails and if the horses come through in early spring, it makes the trails extra soggy.

Lord Hill offers some pretty views of forest meadows and some old mining relics depending on where you come in. I did a huge loop around and ended up climbing quite a steep incline as I walked the trails. There were some 4x4 trucks driving around on some trails as I walked around. It's nothing but a day hike. 

There is plenty of parking early on but as the weather gets increasingly better, the parking fills up fast since this is a local hike and it seems everyone wants to hike it on the weekends.  I wasn't too impressed with the views but then again, these low land, low elevation hikes aren't really my cup of tea.