I am working on my project to hike all the trails on Cougar Mountain. I observed that there are a few trails on the East side of the park I have yet to visit, so I embarked on a plan to find these out. This one starts at Newport Way, a small,. seldom visited trailhead at the Eastern edge of the park. I made a series of five loops, trying to optimize the part while minimizing backtracking and re-hiking sections. I followed the trails, including a short section of bushwhack past some water storage tanks supplying the Talus Subdivision.
M<y route had some decent elevation gain for Cougar Mountain, nearly 1500 feet in the span of four miles which is good for this mountain. I found some nice trails that serpentined their way up and down several wooded gullies. Another eight miles of trails knocked out in a few hours and more of my map filled in!
