Coal Creek Falls

Difficulty: Easy

Distance: 6 Mile Loop

Hiking on Cougar Mountain, which is where you will find Coal Creek Falls, is like hiking on a complicated spider web: there is a labyrinth of over 36 miles of trail to explore. It's best to either map out your route before you go, or if they are available grab a map at the trailhead, so you will not be putting in a lot of hiking time trying to get yourself back to your car. If you have the time there are also some old mine shafts you can see, and an old mine cave. It's closed to going inside, but still cool to look at. The trails up here are very well maintained and super easy to hike on, all you have to do is decide how adventurous you want to be and how many miles you want to log.

Since we had a few kids in tow, we just decided to map out a loop and go by the falls. Here was our 6 mile loop, past the falls, and back to our car if you would like to just follow our hike. We started at the Red Town Trailhead and headed out on the Wildside Trail.

Continue to follow the Wildside Trail until it hooks up with Indian Trail and hang a right onto the Indian Trail.

After a short distance hang a left onto the Far Country Lookout Trail. You will then wander onto the Shy Bear Trail. You will stay on the Shy Bear Trail for quite a bit of time: enjoy the beautiful foliage as you meander through the forest. This is what hiking in the Northwest is all about.

Shy Bear Tail will eventually curve around to the left and join with Quarry Trail. Take a left onto Quarry Trail, follow this for a short distance and then hook a right onto the Coal Creek Falls trail - this will take you down to the falls.

So...... as you can see, our falls turned out to be no more than a trickle at this point in the year. We were talking to a gal who hikes this trail all of the time and she said that just a few weeks ago it was a huge full falls with a roaring river. You can see the evidence of this, we were just too late - so make sure if you want to see the falls go in Spring, not summer. I can tell that it is very beautiful when the falls are full, but it is still pretty even without the rushing water.

To get back to your car, continue on the Coal Creak Falls trail until you come to Cave Hole Trail and turn left and head on down the hill. 

Directions: To get to the Red Town Trailhead from I-405, take exit 10 and follow coal Creak Parkway SE for about 2.5 miles. Turn left at the stoplight, onto Newcastle Way/SE 72nd Place. Turn left at the stop sign onto Newcastle Golf Club Road and follow the road for 2 miles. The Red Town Trailhead entrance will be on your right hand side.