Issaquah Alps: How Cougar, Squak and Tiger Became 'Alps'

The Issaquah Alps is the unofficial name for the highlands around Issaquah: Cougar Mountain, Squak Mountain, Tiger Mountain, Taylor Mountain, Rattlesnake Ridge, Rattlesnake Mountain and Grand Ridge. They follow Interstate 90 from the shore of Lake Washington almost to the western face of the Cascade Range. Cougar Mountain rises to 1,595 feet, Squak Mountain to 2,024 and East Tiger Mountain to 3,004. The highest summit Wikipedia lists is the East Peak of Rattlesnake Mountain, at 3,517 feet. [1]

The name was invented to win them protection. Nature writer Harvey Manning coined it in his trail guidebook Footsore 1, raising the hills from foothills to 'Alps' to argue for their preservation. Wikipedia dates the name to 1977. The Issaquah Alps Trails Club dates it to 1976, and calls it an outrageous name 'which no one could say with a straight face at that time.' Manning lived on a developed part of Cougar Mountain, in a home he called his '200 meter hut.' [1][2]

There was a lot to protect. In 1976, by the club's account, the parks on Cougar Mountain amounted to the old Nike missile site and its radar station. Squak Mountain's park was the 560-acre gift from Stimson Bullitt to the state. Tiger Mountain was a patchwork of private and public land being clearcut at a rapid rate, a place for motorcycles, mud runs, abandoned stolen cars and dumped garbage. Manning's writing about the Alps ran in newspapers and in the newsletters of hiking and conservation groups, and it drew together people who knew the trails on Tiger, Squak and Cougar and wanted them protected. [2]

In 1979 Manning helped found the Issaquah Alps Trails Club, to care for the trails and push for public ownership of the Alps. The club is based in Issaquah, nicknamed 'Trailhead City,' and leads frequent guided hikes. Bill Longwell, an original member, oversaw construction of the 16-mile Tiger Mountain Trail. In 1990 the club promoted a 'downhill' route from Snoqualmie Pass to Elliott Bay. That Mountains to Sound March was a huge success, but it left the club nearly broke, and it was saved by the formation of the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust. [1][2]

The rock is older than the name. The hills are made of andesitic volcanic rock lying on older, tightly folded rocks from the coastal plain of the North Cascade subcontinent, which docked with Washington about 50 million years ago. Glaciers heavily eroded them in the last ice age. The Vashon lobe of the ice sculpted Rattlesnake Ledge, steeply carved the east and west sides of Squak Mountain, and left a large erratic on Cougar Mountain, the Fantastic Erratic. Cedar Butte, sometimes counted among the Alps, is different: a relatively young volcanic cone, closer kin to Mount Washington to the east than to the old, weathered hills that make up most of the Alps. [1]