Introduction


Seattle is blessed with an abundance of close-in parks, forests, and wilderness areas that provide almost unlimited hiking opportunities. However, for those who do not have access to a car, these hikes may seem inaccessible. Parks and trailheads tend to be located away from public transportation, whose routes are designed more for the convenience of commuters, not hikers. With more and more people choosing to live car-free in various “urban villages” of Seattle, and with roads and parking lots already overflowing with excess cars, there certainly is a need for better auto-free access to trailheads.

Despite the limitations of the current transit system, it’s quite possible to use public transit right now to get to the outdoors. This guide  shows you how to make use of King County’s extensive bus system, as well as other transit options, to get out and enjoy many hikes without a car. And these hikes aren’t necessarily all just strolls in the park, although some walks through city parks in Bellevue and Seattle are included. Full day outings are emphasized in this guidebook, and quite a few of the hikes are strenuous. Some multi-day backpack trips are included as well. These trips are real wilderness adventures, and proper wilderness skills and equipment are needed to accomplish them enjoyably.

Although this guide emphasizes hikes in more natural settings, the reality is that Metro Bus Country has a limited overlap with the “real” wilderness featured in typical hiking guidebooks. The dedicated bus hiker needs to be able to enjoy a more mixed, European-style walking experience, where civilization mixes with wild country. Keep a good attitude about the man-made features you come across, enjoy the history and architectural quirks of buildings that you see, and you will have a great time.


What’s in this guidebook

The 50-odd chapters in this guide cover a wide range of bus-accessible hikes, ranging from easy city park walks to strenuous week-long backpacks. For each hike, this guide provides a section of introductory information, followed by a detailed description of the route.

The introductory section starts with a quick summary of the hike, including difficulty, length, elevation gain, and required maps. Hike difficulty ratings range from “easy” to strenuous” An “easy” hike involves a distance of 8 miles or less, and an elevation gain of 1500 feet or less. A “Moderate” hike can be up to 12 miles long and have 2500 feet of elevation gain. Anything longer or with more climbing is labeled “Strenuous”. Following this summary information is a short description of the hike and its main features to help you get an idea of what to expect.

Next comes the all-important bus access information, in a subsection labeled “Getting There.” Explicit bus riding directions are given from downtown Seattle, where many car-free residents live and most visitors will be staying. For those not coming from downtown Seattle, you will have to study paper and online resources to find your bus routes. In general, the closer you live to major bus transfer points, the easier time you will have in getting to trailheads.

Following the introductory material comes the detailed hike description. This includes information on getting from bus stops to the trailhead (which can be a adventure in its own right), directions for following the recommended hiking route, and descriptions of trailside features, history, and highlights. On some of the more complex hikes, data on accumulated mileage from the trailhead and elevation is given at important points, in this format: [mileage, elevation].

Simple maps are provided as needed for each hike, but these maps are not intended to replace detailed maps produced by public agencies, private clubs, or outdoor companies. As mentioned previously, the hike introduction section will recommend additional maps to bring along, if needed. See the following “What to Bring” section for more information on where to get maps and what types are available.

At the end of the hike description is a “Getting Back” section containing information on busses that you need to return home. Many of the hikes in the guide end at a different point then they start at, so this is not always a trivial matter. As in the “Getting There” section, explicit return directions are given to Seattle.

An overview of the Seattle area bus system

Experienced bus riders can skip the next few sections; if you’re new to bus riding, or just need a refresher course, read on.

All public transit journeys to hikes will be on a bus of some form or another, as there is no rail transit in Seattle useable for hiking, so far (with the exception of Amtrak to Bellingham). Most of the hikes in this guide utilize two different bus systems; King County Metro and Sound Transit. Metro busses tend to run on short-haul routes in the cities and rural routes in King County. Sound Transit specializes in providing express connections between major urban centers. Sound Transit busses have a different paint job, tend to be newer and have nicer seating than Metro busses. If you’re trying to cover a long distance, turn to the Sound Transit system. Since both systems use the same transit centers and are otherwise semi-integrated, combining trips on both bus systems is not usually a problem.

Sound Transit Bus

The first problem a would-be bus rider may face is simply finding out where to catch a bus, especially in downtown Seattle, which is a pretty darn big place. Busses may stop on First, Second,Third,Fourth, or Fifth Avenues, depending on the bus route. Furthermore. a given bus route only stops on every third block or so. So even if you know the correct avenue, you may have to search a few blocks to find the bus stop.  So get the bus schedule and route information before your hike if you can, otherwise you may never even find the bus you’re looking for.

To add to the complication, many of the busses in Seattle use the Metro Tunnel, a sort of underground bus subway. Stops for this tunnel can be found at the Convention Center, Westlake Mall, University Street, and Pioneer Square. The tunnel is a comfortable and safe place to catch a bus, usually much preferable than waiting out in the open on a street. Unfortunately, the tunnel closes after 7:00 p.m. and all day on Sunday. At these times, the tunnel busses run on 2nd and 4th Avenues. Be aware that the construction of a light rail system may close the tunnel for a year or more around year 2006.

Outside of the city of Seattle, finding your bus is usually simpler. Many major bus connection points in recent years have been organized into “transit centers”, some of which are new and furnished with many amenities ( for example, Everett Station). These new transit centers, along with the creation of Sound Transit, have remarkably improved the bus riding experience in the Seattle area. For this, you can thank the voters and taxpayers who approved the creation of Sound Transit in the early 1990s.

If you head out of King County, you will encounter some different bus systems. Pierce County, located south of Seattle, has its own bus transit system, Pierce Transit. To the north, Community Transit and Everett Transit serve Snohomish County. Another important bus option is Greyhound, the only way to get to the high Cascades from Seattle. The Greyhound station is located in downtown Seattle at Stewart and 9th Avenue, conveniently close to the Convention Place stop in the Seattle Bus Tunnel.

In the hike descriptions, King County Metro routes (the most commonly used ones) will be referred to by an “M” followed by the route number. For example, the Metro 209 bus line will simply be called bus M 209. The names of all the commonly used bus lines will be abbreviated as follows:

Metro......................... M
Sound Transit .......... ST Everett Transit ..........ET
Community Transit ..CT Pierce Transit ........... PT

Sources of bus information

There are many sources of information on the various bus systems. In downtown Seattle, the Westlake Mall Bus Tunnel station, located in the central shopping district, has a staffed information office and racks containing every possible bus schedule. If you’re new in town, the centrally located Westlake information office is the best place to start collecting information. Elsewhere, libraries and public buildings in most Puget Sound cities usually have at least partial collections of bus schedules.

The Sound Transit bus system schedules and maps are published in a single handy book called “Get Ready to Ride”, available at these locations. Less conveniently, Metro bus schedules come in individual pamphlets for each route.   Metro publishes a map called “Transit Map and Rider’s Guide”, available at the Westlake info center, that graphically shows every bus route in King County. The map is awesomely complex, but it’s worth having despite being a bit confusing to use. The main problem with the map is that it shows a huge number of commuter routes with only a few runs a day--useless for most bus users-- along with the useful high-frequency routes.

Pierce Transit, Everett Transit, and Community Transit publish their own handy bus schedule booklets which are available at the Westlake Metro information office and many other locations. Be sure to collect copies of these booklets when you find them.

As is often true these days,there is a wealth of information on the Internet. See transit.metrokc.gov for Metro and Soundtransit.org for Sound Transit. For Community Transit and Pierce Transit, see communitytransit.org and piercetransit.org. Fully up-to-date information on every bus route and schedule is available online. For the bus rider, the Internet is an amazingly invaluable tool.

As a last resort, look on the busses themselves, which usually (but not always) have schedules books on board. Schedules are posted at a fair number of bus stops, too.


Bus Riding basics

After you have collected bus schedules and identified a hike in this guide that you want to do, its time to do a little planning. The night before your hike, recheck bus schedules (the Internet is handy for this) and write down a simple “flight plan” on a sheet of paper, showing departure and arrival times of all the bus rides needed to get to the trailhead. Such a plan might look like this:

72 bus: leave U.W. 10:03, arrive Downtown University Bus Tunnel station 10:20 a.m.
554 bus: leave 2nd and Union 9:56, arrive at Issaquah Park and Ride 10:31 a.m.
209 bus: leave Issaquah park and ride ,10:33 a.m.; get off bus at High Point. Start Hiking!

Having such a plan is handier than trying to sort through bus schedules on route. It can also save you time, especially if you’re heading into an area of sparse bus service. You want to make sure that at a critical transfer point, you don’t have to wait ages for a bus that may come only hourly. Optionally you might prepare a plan for the return trip, although the unpredictability of timing the end of a hike makes this trickier. This is one reason why it’s best to plan a hike so that it ends at the point with better and more frequent bus service.

When it’s time to go, arrive at the bus stop a few minutes early. Seattle area busses tend to stay on schedule fairly well, typically arriving a few minutes late. But sometimes they come a bit early just to keep you on your toes; you want to be ready for that.

You usually pay for the ride when boarding the bus, although on most buses leaving downtown Seattle you pay when getting off--a point of continual confusion for locals as well as visitors. Payment can be with coins or dollar bills, however, no change can be given. Monthly and annual bus passes called “Puget Passes” are available to pay the fare more conveniently. If you get one of those, be sure to get one of the higher value “two zone peak” cards, otherwise you will always be digging in your pockets for change, as the cheaper cards often don’t cover the full fare. Fares vary with the time of day and distance traveled. The fare scheme is confusing; the best approach is to not worry about it and just pay the amount posted on the fare collection box located next the driver. Carrying four one-dollar bills and about four quarters should get you anywhere and back in King County.

If you pay with cash, be sure to get a “transfer”, a paper slip that entitles you to board other busses without further payment for a limited time, usually a few hours. In fact, Metro, Sound Transit, Pierce Transit, and Community Transit all accept each other’s transfers. So be sure to get a transfer, they can save you a lot of money! The situation with transfers gets complicated when you cross fare zone boundaries. Sometimes you will have to pay an additional fare if you transfer to a bus with a long route, such as the Sound Transit trip from Seattle to Tacoma. Bus drivers are very unpredictable on this matter, however. The best policy is to show the driver the transfer and ask if any additional fare is needed.

Be aware that bus service is frequently reduced on weekends, especially Sundays. Some hikes cannot be done at all on weekends. If there is a problem with weekend service, it will be noted in the hike description. As a rule, don’t plan on long bus trips out to the countryside on Sundays, it’s just too much trouble.

One of the hardest things about bus riding is knowing when to get off. If you’re not familiar with the area, don’t hesitate to enlist the help of the bus driver or a passenger. For tech-savvy bus users, I've provided some GPS coordinates for bus stops. Bring a GPS unit, program in the bus stop coordinates as a way point, and let it tell you when to get off.

Different busses have different means to request a stop. Usually you pull on a cord running by the windows of the bus, but Sound transit busses have yellow strips mounted to the wall that you push. Be sure to figure it out before your stop comes up. 

I don’t want to make all this sound too complicated, it’s not. Bus drivers are usually happy to answer questions if you are confused. This is especially true on the lightly traveled rural routes that hikers use. If you do miss a connection, relax. Another bus will be coming, often quite soon. If you are faced with a long wait, look around and find something to do. Shop in nearby stores, read a paper, or have a latte.

Combining bus rides with car and bike transportation

Pro public transit that I am, I have to admit that access to some hikes can be greatly improved by combining both car and bus rides to get to the trailhead. You can enjoy both the speed and comfort of a car trip with the point-to-point hiking freedom of public transit. Hikes originating near certain major park and rides work well with this “hybrid” transit approach. For example, to do hike 26 (Around Squak Mountain), you can drive to the Issaquah Park and Ride, park there, then catch the M 200 bus to downtown Issaquah. Next, proceed with the hike, which returns you neatly back at the park-and-ride, where your car awaits. Other such “hybrid” hikes can be done by parking in downtown Issaquah, Preston Park and Ride, and Redmond Park and Ride. For those living in outlying suburbs with poor bus service, the hybrid trip is the only realistic way to take advantage of busses for hiking.

Carrying your bike along on the bus can open up some more hiking possibilities. Most busses have a rack in front that can accommodate one or two bikes. North Bend is rich in bike/hike possibilities. For example, you can ride a bike up the Snoqualmie Valley Trail, to Rattlesnake Lake Trailhead, then hike up Rattlesnake Ledge. I’ve met people who have permanently stored a bike in North Bend for just this purpose.


Why Ride The Bus?

Using a car to get to trailheads has many obvious, even overwhelming advantages. And there's no getting around it, riding busses can be downright unpleasant, especially on crowded urban routes. But the advantages are not all on the car driver’s side. Riding the bus does has its own significant rewards, which you may come to appreciate. Some of these are:

*It’s cheap. It’s amazing how far you can go for the price of a $1.25 bus ticket. And you avoid proliferating trailhead parking fees.

*It’s safe. A bus is much larger than the largest SUV. Guess who’s going to win in a collision?

*You save the earth by parking the polluter at home.

*You avoid car break-ins at trailheads, an ongoing nuisance for car users.

*Bus riders can enjoy The bus riding “esprit du corps”, especially on the less crowded suburban routes. Many bus riders are regulars, who treat the bus ride as an social event. You can listen in on interesting conversations, or even participate. Sometimes, you can start to pity the solitary road warriors trapped in their cars.

*You can sight-see. Freed from the effort of driving, you are able to watch the passing scenery. Many King County bus routes are quite scenic.

*Bus riding forces serendipitous discoveries Riding the bus forces you to go to new places. Without your car, you can’t hike up Mt. Si for the 50th time.

*You can do point-to-point hikes. Freed from returning to a parked car, bus riders can finish hikes far from the starting point. Startling distances can be covered in a point-to-point hike, such as going from Lake Washington to Issaquah. When planning a point-to-point hike, it is helpful to start the hike at a point with more difficult bus access, and end the hike at a point with better bus access. This guide features many hikes of this type.

What to bring along on a hike

Most of the hikes in this guide are in urban or suburban areas. Such hikes require only a minimum of equipment, such as:

* comfortable walking shoes,
* a day pack with shacks
* water bottle,
* sun protection in summer (hat, sun cream),
* wind breaker, and rain parka or umbrella in rainy weather.

Bus riders will need to carry these “Bus essentials” also:

*Cash or a good ” two zone peak” bus Puget Pass. Four one-dollar bills and four quarters should cover the bus ride costs.
*Bus schedules appropriate for the trip
*An accurate watch
*Ear plugs--some bus stops are in awfully noisy locations.
*Reading material for long bus rides and waits
*Metro’s Transit Map and Riders Guide, a detailed map of all Metro routes in King County

Good maps are valuable to bring along on all hikes, and a necessity for wilderness hikes. For urban hikes in and around Seattle, having a standard street map is handy. If you don’t mind the weight, the “Thomas Guide” for KIng County (published by Rand-McNally) shows every street in detail, and even some bike/hike trails, such as the Snoqualmie Valley Trail. Thomas Guides are found in most bookstores.

Other maps you might need depending on location are:

*Green Trails Maps, which are topographic maps especially designed for hiking use. They are widely available at major bookstores and sporting goods stores.
*King County Bicycling Guidemap, available at the larger bicycle shops.
*Bellevue Park Guide, available at the Bellevue Botanical Garden visitor center and Lake Hills ranger station.
*Issaquah Alps Trail Club (IATC) Maps cover Tiger, Squak and Cougar mountain parklands. These maps are sporadically available at REI or you can order them from the club web site. They’re printed in black and white and are not as pretty as Green Trails maps, but cost much less.

The REI outdoor equipment stores, located in downtown Seattle and several other suburban locations,are one good source of maps. The Seattle store is located at 222 Yale Ave North, phone (206)-223-1944. It’s a fairly short walk from the Convention Place bus tunnel stop. Walk northwest on 9th Ave to the Greyhound Station, then go right (NE) on Stewart St for several blocks . Bus M 66 goes right by the store on the Eastlake Avenue side. You also might try Metsker’s Maps of Seattle, conveniently located in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, 1511 First Ave, (206)623-8747. The University Bookstore has a good selection of hiking maps in their University District location.

Some of the longer hikes describe here on Tiger Mountain, Squak Mountain, Cougar Mountain, and Cascade Mountains are real wilderness adventures. For comfort and safety, you definitely want to be equipped with the Ten Essentials, a list of equipment developed by hikers from hard experience.

1: Extra clothing-more than needed for good weather. Having a rain parka, fleece sweater, and fleece cap is recommended. Do not wear cotton clothes of any kind, which become dangerously chilling when wet.
2: Extra Food-so that something is left over at the end of the trip
3: Sunglasses-especially important for alpine and snow travel
4: Knife-for first aid and fire building
5: FIrestarter-a candle or chemical fuel for starting a fire with wet wood
6: First aid kit--and the knowledge to use it
7: Matches in a waterproof container
8: Flashlight --with extra bulb and batteries
9: Map-- preferably a up-to-date topographic version with good detail.
10: Compass--know how to use it.


No Trace Hiking and Camping

When I learned to camp in the olden times (1960s), there were few rules about wilderness use, other than to avoid leaving visible garbage strewn about and setting the forest on fire. Every plant, living or dead, was fair game for cutting, hacking, and burning in the process of civilizing a campsite. And campsite engineering was an expected activity. Extensive earth moving operations were employed if campsites were not suitably level, or better drainage was required.

Since those innocent times, the ever-increasing horde of hikers and backpackers seeking adventure in the wilderness requires that everyone take a more gentle approach to wilderness use...otherwise everything will be hacked, burned, and trampled, and there will be no nature left for anyone to enjoy. The goal now is to leave no trace of one’s visit at all, so that future generations can enjoy some resemblance of a pristine wilderness. Also, part of the “Leave No Trace” principle is to reduce the visual and audible impact of your presence on other wilderness users as much as possible. Try to be a bit stealthy when you hike and camp. Some rules of “No Trace” hiking and backpacking may be summarized as follows

Pack it in, pack it out. With some sorry exceptions, most hikers these days are good about not littering. It is no burden to carry all one’s garbage out, which is always much lighter than the stuff that one originally packed in. Don’t try burying garbage, as animals will dig it up and make a mess. Burning garbage is also messy, ineffective, and requires building a campfire, a problem in its own right. For some reason, judging by the garbage found in many fire pits, many people think that beer cans and aluminum foil burn. They don’t.

Party Size LImits. Many designated wilderness areas limit party size to 12, to reduce physical damage to the environment, and the intrusiveness of the party to other hikers. Do respect such limits.

Minimum impact camping. Overnight camping has a huge potential impact on the wilderness and therefore must be done carefully.

Avoid creating new campsites. If an existing campsite with “hardened” bare dirt exists in an area, use it, unless it is too close to lakes and streams. The Forest Service recommends camping at least 100 feet away from water to limit pollution of the water and to minimize the visual impact on other wilderness users. This rule also helps wildlife, who may need to use the water, too.

If you must make a new campsite, set it up on invulnerable surfaces such as bare rock, snow, or sand, if possible. Dry forest sites covered with leaves and needles (but little plant life) are O.K. As noted above, camp 100’ away from water sources. It is helpful to bring a water carrier with a capacity of at least one gallon to reduce water fetching trips. Besides reducing the trampling of stream banks, having such a carrier enables you to camp on dry ridge tops, which have great views and are often warmer at night than valley floors, that tend to collect cold air. Avoid plant destruction when you camp. To this end, it is especially important to not camp on alpine meadows or heather fields, scenic as they are. Meadow plants are rapidly destroyed by trampling. Such campsites are also highly visible and spoil the views for other wilderness users.

Once you’ve selected your camp, takes steps to minimize further impact on the area. Do your washing well away from streams and lakes, to keep them clean. Eschew engineering projects; don’t improve campsites by sawing trees, moving earth, and digging trenches. Drainage problems in rainstorms are best prevented by selecting a tent site that has good drainage to begin with. Don’t build campfires and treat human waste properly (see the notes below for more detail on these matters). Choosing camping equipment made with soft, natural colors also helps reduce the visual impact of your campsite on others.

Pets . Think twice about bringing dogs along on hikes and backpacks. Besides being noisy, dogs can threaten wildlife and other hikers. Even normally placid pets can behave aggressively when away from their home territory.

Campfires. Use them rarely, if ever. Campfires unavoidably create a sooty, dirty mess that makes campsites less desirable. Who wants bits of ash and charcoal getting all over their expensive tents and camping equipment? Modern backpack stoves are light and convenient, so there is little need for cook fires these days.

If you want to build a campfire, choose to do so only in low-elevation forest campsites located in little-used areas. At low elevations, trees grow fast and replenish the wood supply more quickly. Keep fires small and fuel them with sticks that have already fallen to the ground. Sawing branches off trees or dead snags produces ugly results. If you can’t find enough fallen wood to build a fire, you’re in an area that’s already too heavily used for fire-building to be acceptable. Don’t build new fire rings if none exist; nobody wants to look at more piles of sooty, blackened rocks. Most campsites have far too many fire rings already. Of course, pay attention to the forest fire danger. Even in Washington State,with its wet reputation, summer droughts can be long and intense. If the forest floor seems at all dry, it’s best to not risk starting an out-of-control conflagration by messing with a campfire. Forest fires grab headlines. Do you want to be featured as a prime suspect on the five-o’clock news?

Don’t create new trails. If hiking off-trail, avoid walking on meadows and other delicate plants such as heather. Deliberately marking or creating new trails is really frowned upon by public land managers. Washington’s forests seem to be full of colorful plastic ribbons that people have put up to mark some route to who knows where. Don’t add to the visual blight.

However, with the popularity of hiking these days, there is a great need for new trails. The government is too strapped for money even to maintain the existing trails, let alone build new ones. Thus volunteers play an important role in expanding the trail network. If you get a bad case of the trail building bug (and it can be a really satisfying activity), join an officially sanctioned group that constructs trails, such as Washington Trails Association or Issaquah Alps Trails Club.

Treat human waste properly. If there is no toilet or outhouse available, bury human waste at least 4 inches deep and 200 feet from trails, campsites and water sources. Preferably, use an area of soft, organic soil which will rapidly decompose the waste. Consider packing out used toilet paper, which is slow to decompose. Otherwise, bury it carefully. Do not burn toilet paper; it’s too easy to start forest fires doing so. .

If you find a proper potty plot, consider yourself lucky. In some areas, such as high peaks where there is nothing but rock and ice, proper disposal of human waste is not possible. In such places, hikers are increasingly asked to pack out their waste in what are euphemistically called “blue bags” or “burrito bags”. This extreme example of the No-Trace Ethic could expand to more wilderness areas.

Safety in the Wilderness (and the Urban Jungle)

Hiking in the wilderness is in general a safe sport but here are a few things to be careful about:

*Getting lost. It’s possible to do even in foothill areas, such as Tiger Mountain. Carry a map and compass know how to use them. Let people know where you are going before setting out on a hike. If you think you are lost, sit down and stay calm. If night is falling, which can happen swiftly and early in winter, prepare to camp overnight instead of thrashing about in the dark. Stay together if you are in a group. If you have packed properly with the Ten Essentials, there is no immediate danger.

*Hypothermia. Loss of body heat in cold weather is a lethal threat to poorly dressed hikers. It does not have to be below freezing to be dangerous; A cold, windy rain is enough to cause hazardous chilling. To avoid hypothermia, have extra warm clothing in your pack, and avoid wearing cotton clothes (such as jeans), which chill the body when wet.

*Steep snow fields. They can present a real hazard in the higher elevations of the Cascades, where snowfields can linger long into the summer. Slipping on snowfields has caused a lot of wilderness accidents, often fatal. Uncontrollable slides occur with unbelievable suddenness; without proper equipment, you may not stop until you hit rocks, or trees at high speed-- or slide over a cliff. If you are not equipped with an ice ax, and training in its use, it is best to go around the snow slope, or just turn back.

*Drinking creek water. Unfortunately, many creeks carry various kinds of bacteria that can make you very sick. Don’t drink out of streams without properly treating the water with an effective filter device, or at least using iodine tablets (such as Potable Aqua).

*High Wind and toppling trees. A under-appreciated hazard, especially in the foothill areas of the Cascades and Tiger Mountain. These areas are not only prone to sudden, powerful windstorms in winter (often blowing in from the east), but have many deciduous trees, which frequently have rotten trunks and topple easily. Falling trees have caused fatal accidents. It’ s best to avoid hiking in strong windstorms; leave the forest as quickly as possible if the wind is rising to an excessive level.

*Cougars and bears. Sightings of cougars are extremely rare, and no fatal attacks have occurred in Washington in a long time. Yet, encounters seem to be happening more often these days. Hiking in groups prevents problems with cougars. If you do see one, make a lot of noise, throw things at the animal, and in general act aggressive. Do not run away, as that may trigger the cat to chase. Keep children close by when hiking, as (putting it harshly) cougars see them as easy prey.

In Washington, bears are shy and mainly cause problems when they raid camps for food. Study a good backpacking book for more information of proper food storage techniques in camp. Using bear proof storage canisters is one good solution that’s becoming more popular.

*Urban Safety: Many of the walks featured in this guidebook are in urban areas, where the natural hazards listed above really don’t apply, but where encounters with human malefactors are possible. The best rule is to not walk alone in urban parks and trails, and to avoid these areas at night. Obviously, use your best judgment about hitchhiking or accepting rides with strangers, modes of transportation which I do not recommend.

*Road Walking: When walking on roads with no shoulder or sidewalk, something the bus riding hiker has to do a lot, the general rule is to walk on the side where you’re facing the oncoming traffic. That way you can keep an eye on approaching cars. Most drivers are considerate, but there are all too many drunks out on the road. You want to be able to spot inattentive or intoxicated drivers, who may weave off the pavement.

Some final words

The more people use busses, the better service will get. Right now some rural routes are very underutilized and threatened with extinction by cash-strapped public agencies. If hikers get out and use these routes, they will be saved from cancellation and perhaps new runs will even be added.

Perhaps city busses will one day go all the way to Snoqualmie Pass, as they once did. Or we can dream of having passenger rail service restored over Stampede Pass, with a train station near the pass for skiers and hikers. In the meantime, ride busses as much as you can, and write letters to Metro requesting better rural bus service.

See you on the trail!

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