Day Hike - Wilderness Peak Loop

Our party of six met at the Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park / Jim Whittaker Wilderness Peak Trailhead at 8:30am and hit the trail about 8:45am starting out on the Whittaker Wilderness Peak Trail to the Gombu Wilderness Cliffs Trail. We stopped briefly at the summit of Wilderness Peak and signed the summit registry. We then headed to Shy Bear Pass where we took a second loop via the Shy Bear Trail to Deceiver Trail. We took a quick side trail to take a peek at Doughty Falls, which was a trickle of water this late in the season but well worth the trip to satisfy our curiosity. We continued on the Deceiver trail to Long View Peak Trail which took us back to Shy Bear Pass and the Whittaker trail. Along the way back we found a “cave” under a rock overhang and stopped to explore a little bit. The trails wound through beautiful forest, swamps and bogs full of spring life. We enjoyed stopping to identify the trees, ferns, plants and flowers we came across and even saw what we think was a mountain gopher! It was a rainy mild spring day but we were protected from the rain by the thick tree canopy. The trail is in a great condition with tons of slugs and snails; we counted 100 slugs and 4 snails before we stopped counting. Not a busy trail for the location; most hikers and trailer runs we encountered wore masks, which made this a peaceful day. We returned to the cars around 2:30pm tired but happy to be able to get outside finally, as for most this was the first hike out since COVID-19 began.