This last Monday I took a walk on Cougar Mountain. Here is a big tree and a scenic part of a path. The whole place is beautiful really. I met a nature minded guy and his charming family. No picture though. He was going on about the history of cougar mountain, how all of the old growth is buried under the mountain holding up the coal mining shafts and how there cannot be a sustained forest there as there had before, because the now gone old growth douglas firs had kept in the mist necessary for the trees. The town of Newcastle is what is nearest the park. The nature guy said that all of the surrounding towns would love to have the land there but it cannot be built on because of the mines and the gas contained therein. The next day I would have to return to the truck and work. I rode my bike to work today.