This week’s outing took us to the Red Town trailhead at Cougar Mountain. This was definitely our most trail like hike to date. I remember reading that there are 36 miles of trails to explore. Nevertheless, we were a little taken aback by the number of cars in the parking lot. I started having Alderwood Mall flashbacks when we actually had to wait for another car to pull out to find a place to park. I realized Hannah shared my concerns when she commented “Ah, enjoying nature with 50 other people walking right next to us. Great.”
Some of the parking lot crunch could have been attributed to a recent article in the Seattle Times about Cougar Mountain trails. After all, this is how we decided to go explore the area, but once underway there are many trail options to choose from. The trails weren’t very crowded as we moved a mile or so from the main trail head, and neither of us felt like we were walking along the trail equivalent of I-5. The people we did run into were very friendly and a little curious about our pug hiking companion.
Sydney kept up just fine and enjoyed playing around in the leaves along the side of the trail. However, we were reminded of her dislike of moving water. She pretty much does everything she can to avoid it. If she can’t find a route around a stream, eventually she’ll jump across, but there was no way we were going to coax her into drinking out of one of the streams.
The Cougar Mountain trail system was a great hike, and I’m sure we’ll be back to explore new routes in the future.
