Treasure everywhere

Seattle hikes have an underrated charm in winter and spring. When rain still fills the air, and when the droplets pause at each leaf on the way before they join the streams that race down the slopes from every nook. The only reason we are not shocked by such beauty is that it is so commonplace here. The Saturday hike around the Wilderness Peak was an opportunity to celebrate this beauty. 

The time of the year, the short distance and elevation make it an excellent candidate for hiking it at nature's speed. An excellent excuse to stay out longer than needed and soak your eyes in moss drenched green. The summit of Wilderness Peak is covered with trees except for a small circular clearing and a bench that I can only assume is where the local wildlife get together for a beer once the humans have left the area.

From there we took a small detour to visit Long View Peak after descending from Wilderness Peak. (I was thankful I forgot my horse at home when I saw a "No Horses" sign at an intersection). The second half of the hike was slower than the first. We had to stop every ten minutes just to look around. We discussed why one particular tree grew in one direction and another grew in a different one. Do trees "decide" to grow one way or another? We argued why we should call our decision making based available choices and resources as "conscious" but that of the trees as "reactive".

 The area around the boardwalk on way down next to the huge rock with an incredibly styled moss-top is right out a story book. The board walk curves around the rock mysteriously and when we looked past the turn, we couldn't decide which direction we should take as our parting view of this area.

 Even this gorgeous area still came out second best. The credit for the top surprise goes to a spot that my partner caught and called me back. It looked like a love story that overcame trail building through this forest. The tree on the right loved the tree on the left but this trail in the middle came in the way of connecting with its friend on the left. So, it has sent an offshoot, a portion of itself, to cross the trail, to walk along the trail all the way to its friend on the left and then to grow next to it.

There is a Calvin & Hobbes strip where Hobbes asks Calvin what he has found so far when Hobbes finds out he is digging a hole looking for buried treasure. Calvin has found a few dirty rocks, a weird root and some disgusting grubs. Hobbes is joyous that Calvin has found it on his first try. Calvin responds, "There's treasure everywhere".

This local hike is perfect for training or getting out on the mountain when you don't have much time. The parking at the trailhead is small but across the street is additional parking. I took the counter clockwise direction and it got my heart going quickly.  It's slippery and muddy in places but otherwise well maintained, well signed, and great for a couple miles of heart thumping hiking when time is not on your side.

This is a great hike near Seattle! Good elevation gain and interesting features along the way. Only gripe is every dog we came upon (and there were several) was off-leash and we had to ask every owner to leash their dog so we could pass with ours. Please keep your dogs on leash - it’s a park rule!

Weather was uncertain today, so I headed for Cougar Mountain. This time of year it's nice to have a "pick a size" kind of hike so close to Seattle. There are so many great trails and loop possibilities.

This is in trail order:

I started at the Wilderness Creek trailhead. This probably has the most elevation gain of the Cougar Mountain trails. It also loses all the city noise once you pass the first trail junction. The trail was pretty dry today, but there were a couple of blowdowns to jump over.

From there, I turned onto the Longview Peak / Deceiver trail and headed to Doughty Falls. The falls are currently a trickle (3rd picture). Supposedly best time to see them is in early spring, like March. They've put a nice new wooden fence in since I was last here and whoever did it stacked the remaining wood into a funny sculpture (2nd picture). 

From the Deceiver Trail I looped back on Shy Bear Trail to the Wilderness Peak Loop and back down. The forest floor on the entire hike was covered with bright fallen leaves, but this portion of today's hike still had some colorful trees.

I saw tons of mushrooms the entire hike. There were very few people - I only encountered 5 people. Round trip on this loop was slightly over 6 miles and 1500' of elevation gain.

The fall color around Puget sound is exceptional this year.  This seems to happen about once ever 5 years or so.  The Big Leaf Maples are bright yellow right now. It's supposed to be windy tonight so some of the leave may fall but I think it will still be great for a few days.

There was running event that we had to contend with.  The runners were all very friendly and polite but it was still quite annoying to have to step aside ever few minutes to let them by.  I will check the running event sch next time and try to avoid it.

4.7 mi loop, 1250 ft