Issaquah Alps: West Tiger Mountain

A couple of weeks ago I was looking for a hike to do on the weekend with my folks so I did a little web searching and I found the City of Issaquah Trails Site. This great site has a series of small hikes conveniently located near Issaquah. I've put a low-res version of the map below - see the link below for a higher-res PDF.

City of Issaquah Family Forest Walks.

The start of the trails is very close to the I-90, a major freeway, so it is easy to get to. We got there in a few minutes from downtown Issaquah and parked and found what looked like a good trail to start walking on.

Starting out up West Tiger Mountain (unintentionally).

It was surprising just how noisy the traffic was as we walked along. It did spoil the otherwise spectacular green forest walk, for at least probably 20 minutes into the walk.

Steps going up a fair ascent.

After a few reasonably steep ascents a jogger came past us and we asked her if she knew where the trail went. Somewhat surprised, she answered 'yes'. We followed up with the obvious 'so, where is going to', to which she replied that it was the old trail that goes to the top of West Tiger Mountain and that it might be better if we went to the main trail. I was enjoying the walk so I split up with my folks temporarily and headed up the trail.

About halfway up I saw this sign:

Warning sign partway up the trail. They should put this at the bottom!

Having already made it some way up the trail traveling at a pretty decent pace I decided to press on. It was pretty tough going under time pressure (I had my folks waiting) so I was pleased to see the trees give way to sky after about 45 minutes:

Making it to the top.

I walked through to see that others were enjoying the nice view and weather at the top. There were even some folks putting on sunscreen. The summit elevation is 2522 feet, but I didn't have time to stick around so I took a few photos and took in the view for a couple of minutes and then headed back down.

The view at the top. It was obscured by trees, but still worth the climb.

The walk/jog down the mountain was much easier on my lungs but harder on the legs. It is almost a constant descent without many flat sections to rest.

Rocky descent. I'm taking the main trail next time.

I made it to the bottom and apologized to my folks for the extra delays and then we headed to the trailhead proper.

The High Point Trailhead.

This time we looked for signs and found lots of them.

Signs galore.

We decided to do a loop by following the Bus Trail, then the Wetlands Trail, Ruth Kees Big Tree Trail and finally the kid-friendly Swamp Trail. The total length of the loop is about 6 miles or so.

We found the Bus Trail to be almost perfectly maintained. It was refreshing walking under such nice greenery on a nice, flat, trail.

The Bus Trail. Very nicely maintained.

We soon found the Greyhound Bus that the trail is named for. Nobody knows quite how it ended up abandoned in the forest, but it has clearly been here for a while. The bullet holes were a little disconcerting, but otherwise it is gradually blending into the forest as it rusts away.

The bus from the Bus Trail.

At the end of the Wetlands Trail we found some flowering trees that looked suspiciously like wattle, although not quite. The trail was almost obscured by the blast of colour.

Flowering trees covering the trail.

As you might expect the Big Tree Trail had a very big tree, but the other trees were just as impressive for me, especially a bunch of particularly straight trees shown below.

Straight trees in the forest.

We approached the Swamp Trail from the wrong end, because it has a series of signs which tell a story. Fortunately it's more for the kids so we just took in the scenery.

The Swamp Trail with its many berry trees.

We arrived at the end of the trail and saw the start of the story. It would be worth taking kids along here, since it is a flat, easy, trail with decent facilities.

Zoe and the Swamp Monster.