Jim Whittaker Wilderness Peak Trailhead — Attraction in Issaquah

Nice hike. Parking is small but there is plenty parking on roadside and if you don’t mind 2 min walk Margaret’s way trailhead has plenty of parking available. Wilderness peak has a new trail now. Trail is well maintained.

10 minutes in and the traffic noise fades into serene waterfall sound. It’s calming. If you take trail longview peak there is another pretty waterfall on the way to shybear. You can cover couple of trails easily in 3-4 hours.

Update:

I have loved the waterfall so much that I have found some loops that can get you to about 4 waterfalls and back in about 9mile and 3K ft of elevation. Take the shy bear trail and fork to quarry to cover coral creek fall, march ahead to indian trail to cover far country fall and look out point, on return you can fork off of shy bear to deceiver trail covering doughty fall and back to Jim...

So jealous! Not that I am surprised, but wow. For a local/regional park, Cougar Mountain was so beautiful and accessible. We hiked the Wilderness Peak Loop (Peak Trail to Gombu Wilderness Cliffs and back on the Whittaker Wilderness Peak Trail). All told we were at almost 6.5 miles. Though, in typical Seattle fashion, it was damp and rainy, there were no pure mud-bogs and the whole loop was passable. Looks to get pretty crowded so if you want to visit on the weekend, recommend getting there early. We went on a winter Sunday morning and got the second to last parking spot around 8:30-9am. Seems to be a favorite of trail runners, especially those with canine companions. There are many more miles we didn't get to explore, but look to not disappoint. Would...

Super, nice trails with lots of elevation and if you go all the way up you'll hit some nice up and down before you make the descent back down to the trailhead. It gets pretty wet and muddy here in the winter but it's still worth it because the trails are just that good. There's some narrow bridge/log crossings over running water and nice views of multiple waterfalls. If the elevation is too tough for you then you should come up Cougar Mountain from the north side at one of the trailheads over there instead because the trails are a lot easier over there. You can reach those trails from here too though, and vice-versa, if you're willing to...