Wilderness Peak Loop, Shy Bear, Long View Peak, Deceiver, Margaret's Way and Debbie's View, Central Peak & West Access Trail — Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017

Issaquah Alps > Cougar Mountain

A nice loop in Cougar and then getting tempted by the mountain across the road. Despite the wind and rain over the last few days, volunteers have been busy with saws and there were only a couple of spots of blowdown on Cougar that needed to be negotiated around. No snow anywhere on the trail and just one or two spots of mud. After doing a big figure-8 through Wilderness + Shy Bear, I jogged a quarter mile down SR 900 and headed up the new Margaret's Way trail on Squak. It took a lot of map studying near the top to reach the central peak (my first time there and there are lots of little trails about 1500 ft). The descent back down Central Peak and West Access was really fun - nice and straight with only a couple downed trees to run around. There's a little bit of trampled down snow in the last mile of approach to Squak from the north, but nothing that can't be done in boots or good trail shoes.