Epic Hikes of Washington State - Cougar Mountain

 

Cougar Mountain

Date Hiked: August 2nd, 2025

Trail Hiked: Whitaker Peak and Shy Bear Loop Trail to Doughty Falls

Distance Hiked: 9.5 miles

Elevation Gain: 2162 ft. 

Duration: 3h 49m

This mountain is a graveyard of memories for me, and it has nothing to do with the trail itself. 

I didn't know when I was doing this hike that it would (likely) be the last time I ever set foot on these grounds. At the time I was traversing these heights, it was a return to conquer something upon which I'd given up at a time of much lesser endurance than I now possessed. It was a place of sentiment, the subject of many stories, and one where something (once) significant took place that helped shape several years of my life. 

Now, to reflect on it, it is one of morose, of buried emotions that lay dormant amongst the tombstones with names fading into the obscurity of the past. Writing about it is one last journey through moss and a canopy of trees upon which my eyes will never gaze again, and that is a shame because this is a beautiful place within decent proximity to the metro area. 

When my hiking prowess was much closer to the novice level, at a time where I didn't even think to bring a water bottle or proper footwear, I explored this place with Redacted without realizing just how far up we went. The screams of a barred owl only heightened the mystique of this place that created the illusion of isolation despite being mere minutes away from the main drag in Renton. Funny enough, this was my second choice of a location for adventure on this pristine Saturday August morning, after an attempt to revisit the Melmont Ghost Town trail was unsuccessful due to trail closure. Thus, going from Bremerton to Carbonado was a waste of time, and Cougar Mountain ended up being as close to a sentimental callback as the former was intended to be. I'll write about Melmont another time, once I can conjure its similarly dead place in my soul. 

Having completed the summit of Mt. Si a mere week earlier, the immediate slope upward didn't seem as difficult as it had four years prior. But, the trail gives no illusions of gentle ascent, for once one leaves their car in the tiny parking lot (assuming one even finds a spot), the upward climb begins immediately and doesn't let up for a while. Cougar Mountain is a mere third of the height of Si, but confronting that incline first thing into the hike definitely gets the output juices going within the first few minutes of arrival. 

The giant rocks with mossy coats give way to shadowy cavern-like crevices, making it appropriate to throw on some Howard Shore and imagine one is descending into the hidden paradise of Rivendell. How one can be so close to a main road and experience such calming silence is as Washingtonian as one can get in such endeavors, but after a few hundred feet of hanging out with corvids and waterfalls, it's easy to forget the surrounding activity. 

It's beautiful. I hate it now. 

Minnesota State Parks Revisited: Glacial Lakes State Park

Glacial Lakes State Park

Date Hiked: February 3rd, 2026

Trail Hiked: Kettle Lakes Loop

Distance Hiked: 8.2 miles

Elevation Gain: 673 ft.

Duration: 3h 5m

The last time I visited Glacial Lakes State Park was revelatory, and not just because I got an excuse to drop a Kara Thrace reference. In those four seasons during one hike, I experienced a beacon of sunshine from within, where the true self for which I’d been searching finally started breaking through the stratus clouds of the soul. I heard the perfect song, “Fall in Love” by Lazer Club, and I danced along the ancient hills, ripping my shirt off and screaming to the vast horizon that I was finally there.

One year later, I yearned for a similar experience. 

It was only 16 degrees, and yet I didn’t need a coat. The trail was covered by snow and yet I didn’t need my spikes. The park was empty and yet I didn’t feel alone. Having wonderful new friends and a true sense of community despite living history in my city for the second time in six years, the disasters of 2025 were present but not overwhelming me with their aftershocks. It was time to put a capstone on my relationship with this park, as it knew what I needed once. Perhaps the muse lightning in its blissful, non-actual-electricness would strike a second, merciful time. 

Where the Hiking Club trail featured multiple types of terrain, the Kettle Lakes Loop traversed the vastness of the surrounding landscape. Rolling hills despite being in the prairie, ascents and descents with surprising intensity, it felt like the perfection of frozen solitude, the time loop allowing an encore to the prior hike but with a year’s worth of heartbreak and growth alike to fill the in-between. The spaces where routine and response once enlivened predictable yet anticipated mutuality, I now pushed along the vague sense of a trail underneath the drifts purely for my own fulfillment. Sometimes it’s okay to do what you need for no one’s benefit but your own, and I in no way whatsoever claim otherwise for this adventure. This was for me, and I needed something, but I wouldn’t know what until it happened. 

Then, it did.

I let the sax and sky drums of Lazer Club transmit the posthumous beams of a shattered past, with several names now etched into the tombstone of what once was. Then, it was up to the algorithm from the root of that song to find me in this peace. 

Never could I have predicted Bodine Monet’s voice to pierce my snow cocoon of solitude, and yet as I pushed up the steepest hill of the sojourn, there she was.

I wanna drive the highway through the night, I wanna take you somewhere no one finds, I wanna make mistakes that won’t feel right, I wanna chase the hate I’d give my life, for all the love you’d give me, I’m taking it far like a reckless car.

 

Glacial Lakes State Park, once again, was exactly where I needed to be, and that voice scored the soundtrack of my infinity. Thank you, Bodine Monet.

 

 

Superior Hiking Trail #3-2 - Castle Danger to Gooseberry Falls State Park

Happy 100th post to me, thanks for reading! 

Superior Hiking Trail

Map 3 - Section 2

Castle Danger to Gooseberry Falls State Park

Date Hiked - May 11th, 2025

Miles - 14.2

Elevation Gain - 925 ft. 

This marks the point where I stopped trying to Hundred Percent the trail in complete sequential order.

I made no attempts to hide my disappointment with the majority of Map 2. Three hours of driving, no ridesharing available, only to end up wandering through brown grass, ticks, swamps, and not much else, I was on the precipice of abandoning the concept entirely. Therefore, skipping ahead a bit (and returning to do 3-1 at a different time), this reinvigorated my enthusiasm for the trail itself, even if the lack of ridesharing outside of Duluth caused this to be a much longer hike than intended. This would lead me to traverse other sections of this trail with a few hiking friends, or at the very least, bring other people to the North Shore with me who could hang out in the city and then come get me at the appropriate time. Though, due to life circumstances and proximity issues, the continuation of my progress would come at a much later date, as if the series of hikes in Washington didn't already indicate as such. 

Immediately this section starts with climbing up some giant-ass rocks to a lovely aerial view of the Gitchee Gumee. This is what was missing from the majority of Map 2, as the name implies some proximity to the lake itself, but a snowmobile trail through the trees considerably off the shore didn't provide nearly as much. The view from Mike's Rock far exceeds the expectations of such a name. I'm sure Mike is lovely, but in my head, I picture some guy standing on a boulder claiming it as his because he touched it first. 

The descent into the area of the Gooseberry River is a challenge of its own. Even in mid-May, a lot of the dead leaves from the ere winter still carpet the majority of the trail, and can make for an unexpected, involuntary launch down a jagged Slip'N'Slide if one isn't careful. While I wasn't expecting to run into many people on Map 2, the weather, the rising temperatures, and the proximity to Memorial Day had me a little more (pleasantly) surprised at my trek of solitude as the trail wound its way toward one of the most popular parks in the state. Once the river starts to bend, one has a choice of continuing on the main trail or taking a rather comparatively lengthy spur toward Gooseberry Falls State Park. Given that Lyft wasn't pinging anything and there would still be the hike back to the car to consider, I opted to journey the three miles to the visitor's center. I thought maybe being near such a touristy area might change my fortune, but I suppose nobody's taking a Lyft to Gooseberry when it already doubles as a rest area. 

I didn't even know there was a Fifth Falls farther up (down?) the trail, and it's considerably wider than the more famous and visited lower sections. That alone was worth the return trip.