In the beginning, there were guide books. For those of you not as old as I am, these were physical items in which information was printed on processed wood called paper. They'd be published and then people would rely on them for YEARS. Anyway, I used guide books as sort of checklists for places to visit.

Suddenly... the internet! Somehow, I stumbled into a community of hikers that begrudgingly shared locations on a private forum. Then came Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. These all still work, but don't expect to find hidden gems.

There is a way, though. Check out Strava and use the global heatmap. Zoom in super tight. Each line on the map shows a Strava user's track. The more lines (or the brighter and thicker the lines), the more people have been there. But what we're looking for are routes where there are a handful of lines and where the map doesn't show a trail. You have a winner!

This is how I found this adventure. Tink and I returned to the same spot Clara and I had searched in vain finding the trail only as we exited. We started steeply up in fresh snow. The trail weaves back and forth through the trees, but it was easy to follow.

Tink was being Tink and sprinting ahead and back and into the trees and back and leaving her prints everywhere in the snow. Mine weren't nearly as chaotic, but were still easy to see. And the cat... wait. A cat's prints? Oh, crap.

The cougar's print couldn't have been more than a few hours old because it had no fresh snow in it. It was as wide as my foot and easily twice as big as Tink's. This was not a housecat. This was a full grown murder kitty. Tink went back on leash and we proceeded through that area until we were up higher. Out of danger? We probably weren't ever in danger and moving up the hill wasn't going to dissuade a cougar if it really wanted us, but whatever.

Eventually, the snow got too deep to follow the trail so we turned back. There were no further signs of wildlife to worry us and neither of us were murdered by a feline.

Needless to say, we didn't see anyone the entire time we were out. Our feet added to the story of the trail and our track is included on the global heatmap.

Now go find some new trails!

📍On the lands of the Snoqualmie people.