Harvey Manning Trail, Shangri La, Klondike Swamp, West Tibbett's Creek Trail (#COUGAR-E10) , Surprise Creek, Lost Beagle, Tibbett's Marsh, No Name & Cougar Pass — Sunday, Apr. 27, 2025

I joined a WTA work party at Cougar Mountain today. We started at the Harvey Manning Trailhead. I arrived around 8 AM and parking was plentiful. There are privies available and they are in decent shape. Our work for the day mostly involved improving drainage on the Lost Beagle Trail, with one group working on a problematic muddy area and the other securing a culvert with rocks and gravel. When the work party ended around 2 PM, the parking area was full. 

After the work party, I took advantage of the good weather and decided to hike a bit. From the parking area, my hike was a counterclockwise loop involving all of the trails named in the title of this trip report. All of the trails are in good shape and are mostly dry with no blocking obstacles of note. This route has a good variety of up and down with flat stretches of trail. It's worth noting that the Harvey Manning Trailhead is the highest trailhead on Cougar Mountain so pretty much everything is down from the trailhead and of course, everything is up on your return trip. My loop hike took about 2 hours and Strava noted the distance to be about 4.5 miles. I also noticed that the bugs were out in force today and were generally abundant whenever we stopped moving during the work party but were not bad while I was hiking. So I guess the key is to keep moving! 

All the trails are well signed but it's always good to have a map handy. There is a large map at the trailhead you can take a picture of to reference during your hike or you can download one at this link: 

https://aqua.kingcounty.gov/gis/web/VMC/recreation/BCT_CougarMtn_brochure.pdf