Day Hike - Licorice Fern Trail

 We arrived at the parking lot around 8:40 AM and found that it was overflowing (cars were parked in the fire lane!). The parking lot being full at this time of day and season is unusual. We ended up parking just outside the park along 166th Way SE which has trail access.

The route we took was a lollipop loop which happened to already include the trail segment by our new starting location. This was convenient since the parking situation ended up having no appreciable effect on our hike. Our hike started with us passing by Sky Country Trailhead, our original start location, to head toward Coal Creek Falls. When passing by Sky Country Trailhead, we discovered that there was a very large trail party present which explains why we had such difficulty finding a parking spot. We then made our way to a Coal Creek Falls which had a good flow of water (see picture above). Afterward, we made our way to the main part of our hike, Licorice Fern Trail.

Our route for Licorice Fern Trail effectively has the hike being done in reverse. Instead of starting at a road, we started within the park. The trail, from our perspective, started with us crossing a bridge (see below).

The rest of the hike was more-or-less along a small creek that passed through peoples backyards. The trail still feels very remote and appears to be a much less traffic'd section of the trail system. At one point we did have to duck underneath a large fallen tree though it was nothing too bad. On the way back, our route took us close to the Red Town Trailhead. Overall, this hike was really good.