Cougar Mt - Anti-Aircraft Peak loop

Hiked on 1/17/11

We took advantage of MLK day and a little dry weather to get this hike in. I printed out the Cougar Mt. trail map and Hunter and I made a trip to Sbux to decide what to hike. Anti-Aircraft Peak struck a cord with the 10yr old so that's where we started.

Since the Anti-Aircraft Peak TH is on top of Cougar Mt. all trails lead down. After quickly checking out the "Million Dollar View"picnic area we crossed the parking lot and headed down to the Tibbetts Marsh Trail. We continued descending to the W. Tibbetts Creek Trail and hikes along the creek until the Bear Ridge trail junction. We continued on Tibbetts Creek as the trail started to ascend. Next we merged on to the Shangri La Trail heading NW until taking the "No Name Trail" North until it intersected with the Surprise Creek trail. Then it's back onto Shangri La for .4 miles and 400' of climbing back to car.

This hike had more of a remote feel then Coal Creek Falls did yesterday. Perhaps due in part to us getting an early start on what is a work day for many.

Hunter at one of the junctions

Our route today

I used the Trailguru GPS app on my Droid X to capture this data - Pretty cool

Cougar Mt - Coal Creek Falls

Hiked on 1/16/11

I wanted to get Hunter out of the house for a little exercise after the Seahawks playoff loss to the Bears. Our plan was to hike Rattlesnake Ridge, we only made it as far as the parking lot though. Driving rain drove us to have lunch at the Riverbend cafe in hopes that the rain would pass, it didn't. We decided to put it off a day. On way home the rain stopped so "we" agreed to hike something on Cougar Mt. We have lived in Cougar hills for years but never hiked any trails on Cougar Mt!

We started off from the Red Town trailhead around 3:30pm. The trail starts climbing right away, it wasn't long before the complaining followed. Hunter was a trooper though. We turned off the Cave Hole trail after about .5 miles joining the Coal Creek Falls trail. After roughly another .5 miles we were at the falls. I must say I was pleasantly surprised with the Falls. In 15 years of mountaineering I have seen some spectacular Waterfalls, Coal Creek Falls isn't spectacular but it was very nice. After a few picturse on the bridge we headed back. The trail climbs from the Falls back to the Cave Hole trail intersection before descending the rest of the way back to the car.

Overall a great hike of just over 2 miles with a beautiful Waterfall.

Route traveled

Hunter at the Falls