Cougar Creek

Cougar Creek is a major tributary of the Lewis River, located south/southwest of Mt. St. Helens. Cougar packs a lot of variety between big pools, jumps, and a long free-hanging rappel. A beautiful lower narrows. Warning: Cougar is a relatively high pay-to-play. Start early, and be prepared for a long day. There's a 2mi crosscountry hike out.

Drop a shuttle car at the Trail of Two Forests and drive up on the paved road past Ape Cave. Turn on to a dirt forest road at 46.12382, -122.24213 and follow down this until the creek has washed out the road (the drop in point). Your vehicle probably won't make it all the way, a RAV4 made it to 0.6 miles away from the drop in point. This is the parking area noted on the map. (If you don't have a 4WD-HC vehicle, you can park just off the road at the turn off and walk in which adds like +5-10min.)

A long brushy creek walk with few downclimbs. Two falls with potential for rappelling in higher flow. This section starts shortly after the confluence. It has many pools that look like jumps, but none of them go except the mandatory one. Scrambling around is generally easy, some more rappels could be added here for fun. More waterpark features. Below the big falls, there's about 0.5mi of soul-sucking bouldery creek-walking to the narrows. Reach the confluence with Cougar Creek NE entering via a nice waterfall DCL. Just below the confluence (as of 2025) is a large logjam with a drop DCR. It's easy to bypass by sticking to the DCL canyon wall. (Possible jump from a log DCL?) Just ahead, a monster logjam of pickup-sticks fills the canyon. In 2024, getting through required some delicate balance work, scooching over logs, and two nuisance rappels to get out. (Possible 15ft jump out of the jam.) Use extreme caution as it's likely the jam gets re-arranged every year. Getting through this obstacle may be the most dangerous part of the canyon. Bypass: If anxiety-inducing logjams are not your thing, we discovered in 2025 that it's relatively easy to scramble up a narrow rocky ridge immediately DCR of the jam. It flattens out on top. Walk downstream along the canyon rim about 100 yards, and rappel back in (from convenient tree; ~45ft dirty rappel) downstream of the jam. This bypass is likely faster and safer than scrambling through.

After the last plunge pool, continue walking down the creek, you will pass a nice waterfall DCR. The canyon starts to open and the creek gets shallow and gravel-bottomed (possibly disappearing completely). Follow the creekbed south until it passes near a mini-saddle DCL. This might be a good place to change out of your wetsuit. Look carefully for elk trails climbing up and over the saddle, then cross an overgrown meadow/swamping area on the far side, following along it's left edge through grassy terrain. The swamp can be pretty thick thrashing, but goes relatively quickly. Beyond, hike up through the forest to eventually reach the Trail of Two Forests trailhead. Most of the hiking is atop an old lava flow which has minimal, low-growing brush. Taking a slight southerly detour makes for easier walking. Total distance is around 2mi, 600ft gain.