Beautiful hike through the forest. The trail was muddy and it was raining but the trees kept most of the rain from reaching hikers. The trail is in great condition, esp the boardwalks and bridges.

This was a repeat of a hike I did just over three weeks ago, on January 14. This time I enjoyed the company of my hiking buddy Marin who is visiting from New Mexico. It was a beautiful sunny day to be out on the trails, and the moss and ferns seemed even greener than before. Doughty Falls, just off the Deceiver Trail, was still running high and we timed our hike so the falls were illuminated by the early afternoon sun. We enjoyed negotiating the narrow catwalks that cross Shy Bear Marsh and the marsh along the Whittaker Wilderness Trail. And we appreciated the many large, mossy glacial erratic boulders along the route. In spite of additional rain, the trails still are in excellent condition with very little mud, and the few blowdowns are easily stepped over. The bridge across Wilderness Creek, just upstream of the junction with Gombu's trail, has been completed, and is brand new since my January hike. There were a few other hikers out on the trails today, but it did not seem at all crowded. No large wild critters appeared for us.

Trail was great! The trees shielded us from minimal rain. Shoes and pants got a bit muddy at parts but 95% of the trail was fine for hiking!

Nice day for a hike, sun made an unannounced show on my way down from the peak, even. This is a short hike, so gets a moderate rating, but the elevation will get your heart pumping and your sweat running. Trail is slightly rooty/rocky in spots, though visible and totally manageable, and with surprisingly little mud, and there is water running down one part of the trail and other parts that look like they've recently had water on them.

They are doing upgrades to the Wilderness Creek Trail, replacing the bridges. At the junction 1/2 mile up with the Wilderness Cliffs Trail, the Wilderness Creek Trail is closed until 1/22 because they are replacing a bridge on the trail. The Wilderness Creek Trail is closed from that junction all the way up to the Shy Bear Pass 5-way trail junction. The Wilderness Cliffs Trail is currently the only way to the top of Wilderness Peak from Wilderness Creek TH. We hiked that up to the anti-climatic top. I found it silly to have a summit register up there. We then hiked down to Shy Bear Pass, down Shy Bear Trail to Freds RR Trail, then turned onto East Fork Trail, which is cool with the old bricks on the trail. It must've been an old brick road a long time ago. We hiked this trail to the mine shaft and wow that is awesome. Huge deep cave-like hole in the ground (covered by a locked grate, of course). The hole was much larger than I was expecting. Very nice historic attraction. We then passed by the old clay pit (now more of an open grass field), down to Cougar Pass, then hiked up Anti-Aircraft Ridge Trail to the Anti-Aircraft TH, where we enjoyed the view of Lake Sammamish (no Baker today). We then walked the road to the top of Anti-Aircraft Peak, then found the trail back to Lost Beagle Trail, and hiked that down to Klondike Swamp Trail. We hiked that back out to Clay Pit Road, crossed the road and returned to the Freds RR Trail, which we hiked back out to Shy Bear Pass. Now this is where I planned to hike down the Wilderness Creek Trail. But since it was closed, we had no choice but to hike back up 200 or so feet up and over Wilderness Peak, which also added an extra 3/4 miles to the hike. So the trail construction was an inconvenient obstacle on our hike back out but wasn't too big of a deal in the end. Nice 10 mile/2000ft. gain hike that covered most of the eastern half of Cougar Mountain.