One of our USG reps is an avid hiker. She told us that the purpose of a recent hike was to recover a “geocache,” a hidden treasure somewhere on the mountain. These geocaches are found using a GPS device after you visit a website (http://www.geocaching.com/) to find whether there are caches near you. Each cache has its coordinates listed, along with a description and sometimes clues. A typical cache contains a few small toys, stickers, keychains, etc., as well as a logbook to sign and date. Usually you take something out and leave something behind. After a find, you log it on the website and comment on the experience. Since then, we have become avid cachers. We’ve gone on a number of hikes we never would have known about, and explored parts of cities we wouldn’t have seen otherwise. The photo below is from Cougar Mountain, site of an early find!

Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park is near the community of Issaquah not far from Seattle. It covers more than 3,000 acres, and is famous for its more than 36 miles of trails for hiking, and over 12 miles for equestrians. We did a loop that covered a number of different trails. Some of them are said to have been used 8000 years ago by Native Americans as an overland route to Bend and the Cascades. Believe it or not, we started at a Nike missile site left over from the Cold War. After World War II, anti-aircraft guns were placed on Cougar Mountain to protect Seattle and Puget Sound. They were later upgraded to Nike missle and radar sites. Other points of interest on the trails included a mine shaft used starting in the late 1800s by miners who produced coal for steamships, railroads and the city of San Francisco and Anti-Aircraft Peak. From the natural world: wetlands, salmon-spawning creeks and forest. We didn’t see any of the resident mammals (black bear, black-tailed deer, bobcat, and coyote) but we did see lots of birds including, we believe, a Bald Eagle.