Lord Hill Regional Park — Sunday, Feb. 22, 2015

Puget Sound and Islands > Seattle-Tacoma Area

Our group of four adults and two toddlers spent this sunny Sunday morning hiking through Lord Hill. When we left the trailhead at 9:15 a.m., there were only a few vehicles in the parking lot. We took the Main Trail to the Pipeline Cutoff, then went up to the 630' View Point, where we rested in the sunshine and took in the crystal clear view of Mount Rainier, and the Olympics. It took us 40 minutes to get here. We took the short loop around to return to the Pipeline Cutoff (enjoying a really nice open view of the Cascades en route), from where we took the Beaver Lake Trail loop back to the parking lot. This took about 1 hour. The trails are generally wide, and were mostly mud-free today except around down around the Beaver Lake area. There was some sort of trail race happening today so the parking lot was overflowing when we got back to our cars around 11:45. Couple of things to note: 1) I have to echo a previous hiker's comments about the official park map not being complete, since it doesn't have many of the shorter trails (just the main trails). 2) With that said, we liked having the park map, since signs for the trail intersections are absent in most cases. 3) Beaver Lake isn't really a lake, just a marsh as the hike description states, so adjust your expectations there (we do not think it is the most pretty area of the park).