NPW: Cougar Mountain Mosses

Join us from 9:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. for a leisurely-paced walk starting at the Redtown Trailhead at elevation 660 feet with Lee Ellis, zoologist and volunteer at the UW moss herbarium, which boasts more than 70,000 specimens. Lee will give us an introduction to mosses in general and then we will walk all or part of the 2.0-mile Red Town / Wildside trail loop to discover the incredible diversity of mosses.

We will stroll through deciduous forest of bigleaf maple and black cottonwood with a green forest floor of ferns (sword, wood and lady) and many species of moss along with other old plant friends of a typical Puget Sound–country wet forest.  Lee says that we will discover a whole new world – a miniature forest.  Although it is estimated that Seattle has about 100 species of mosses, Lee will concentrate on showing us the most common and most easily identifiable mosses.  

Please bring a hand lens if you have one, water, raingear, and a sack lunch if you plan to stay after 12:00 noon.  For more information, please contact Jim Kenney at 425-746-9862 or jimkenney770@aol.com.  Please let us know you will be coming so we don’t leave you at the trailhead.

Meet at the Red Town Trailhead.  Directions:  From I-90: Take exit 13, drive south (uphill) on Lakemont Boulevard SE for 3.1 miles. Look for the entrance to the Red Town Trailhead on the left side.