Lake Tradition's Accessible Mile Is Getting Rebuilt for the Wet Season

On Sunday, October 11, the upper lot at High Point Trailhead had about five open spaces left by 9:10 a.m. A hiker who spent that morning on Tradition Plateau with small children posted a Washington Trails Association trip report describing the trails as well marked, mostly flat and well maintained. The hiker suggested blocking out about four hours for the outing when young kids are along.

That report came in the middle of a project to rebuild the flattest stretch of that route. On October 23, the City of Issaquah announced that City Parks Operations staff and WTA are improving the ADA-accessible Bus Trail and part of the ADA-accessible Around the Lake Trail at Lake Tradition. Crews and volunteers have improved drainage, cut back overgrown vegetation, taken out decommissioned viewing platforms and replaced damaged trail edging. All of that prepares the ground for new gravel. The trails stay open during the work, and the City expects the one-mile accessible loop to be finished in early November.

Some of the most-walked ground on Tiger Mountain started as a logging road. It is getting new drainage and gravel now, just before the months when water does the most damage to a trail.

What the gravel is fixing

The groundwork started before October. A WTA volunteer report from September 11 describes a work party clearing brush and opening drainage along the ADA trail, with gravel planned for a later session. That order matters. New gravel on top of standing water washes out, so the drainage and the new edging come first.

WTA's Tradition Lake guide explains why the work is needed. The first half-mile of the Around the Lake Trail is designated for wheelchairs, but the guide warns that soft gravel and a drop at a bridge can be hard going for some wheelchairs. A wheelchair, a stroller or a toddler's legs sink into soft surface first. Firm, well-drained tread is what makes a mile easy to walk.

The viewing platform is the one part still on hold. The old platforms are gone, and the City says a new Lake Tradition viewing platform will be built later. For now, the lake views come from the trail itself.

A bus on a logging road

The Bus Trail is named for a rusted bus in the woods, and the bus explains why the trail is so gentle. According to the Issaquah Alps Trails Club's History Corner, the trail follows a former logging road, which is how a vehicle got onto the plateau in the first place. A 1952 aerial photo in the same article shows the network of roads on Tradition Plateau at that time.

"I believe the bus to be a Kenworth 1929 split-level bus (give or take a year or two)."

That identification comes from the IATC piece. It explains that the split-level design raised rear passengers for a better view and left room for luggage underneath, a layout built for cross-state trips. The article rejects the Greyhound Scenicruiser label that shows up in some sources, because the Scenicruiser was a much larger bus with a dual rear axle and did not appear until 1954. It also calls a school bus very unlikely, since a two-level coach would have made a poor school bus. The City's own description is broader and calls it a 1930s-era bus.

The IATC article also covers how the bus ended up there. It cites historian Eric Erickson, who has written books on local mill and logging operations available through the Issaquah History Museum. Erickson found an oral tradition that a logging crew parked the bus on the site and used it as a bunkhouse while working nearby, and it may have carried crews to the job before that. When the crew moved on, the bus stayed behind and was later stripped.

Logging trucks needed a road with a gentle grade, and that same grade now makes a good accessible path. WTA lists the Bus Trail at 0.7 miles round trip with 200 feet of elevation gain. It passes the bus and connects toward the Wetlands Trail.

Water that drains downward

Lake Tradition has no stream flowing out of it, a detail many repeat visitors never notice. The City's November 2025 Tradition Plateau forest plan explains that the lake's water seeps down into the ground. The IATC's account of the old Issaquah waterworks traces what happened to that water. Springs on the plateau's north slope fed the catchments, cisterns and pipes that once supplied the town, until deep wells replaced the spring-fed system.

The same plan describes the plateau's longer history. Coast Salish peoples cared for the land before Euro-American settlement, and homesteading, farming and timber cutting followed in the foothills, including Tradition Plateau and Tiger Mountain. The plateau once supplied Issaquah's water and timber. Today the City of Issaquah owns the land and manages it with the Washington Department of Natural Resources as part of the West Tiger Mountain Natural Resources Conservation Area.

Water that sinks underground has another effect for walkers. The plateau stays damp, and the low wet ground is part of what makes it interesting. Round Lake on the Wetlands Trail rises and falls with the seasons and from year to year, according to WTA. That moisture is also why the accessible loop needs real drainage to stay firm through winter.

Building a longer outing from the loop

The accessible mile connects to a set of short trails. Each one adds a different kind of ground, and they can be combined as time and energy allow. WTA lists these round-trip figures:

These distances are for each trail on its own, so a full tour runs longer than any one row. The October 11 group took the lower Swamp Trail with its story signs, then Big Tree, then Wetlands. They walked the Bus Trail out to the bus and back, then followed Around the Lake from the Bus Trail junction to the parking lot. Their tracker logged about 4.75 miles. WTA's own write-up says the Big Tree section has wetter, more swamp-like ground than the Swamp Trail. Signs on the Wetlands Trail ask walkers to stay on the main route to protect the wetland.

The Puget Power Trail runs along the power-line corridor. A WTA report from May describes it as wide and gravel-road-like, with only limited views of the lake. It works well for covering ground quickly, while the lakeshore and the bus sit on the smaller trails.

Getting in from High Point

High Point Trailhead is DNR's primary access point for the conservation area and the simplest way to reach the plateau.

• Route: Take I-90 to Exit 20, turn south on 270th Ave SE, then west on SE 79th St. The trailhead is at the end of the gravel access road. City meeting documents give the High Point Trailhead address as 26415 SE 79th St.
• Parking pass: WTA lists a Discover Pass for parked vehicles. DNR describes it as a vehicle permit and says it is not required for people arriving on foot or by other non-motorized means.
• Weekend timing: The upper lot was nearly full by 9:10 a.m. on the October Sunday described above. Parking farther down adds about 0.4 miles of uphill walking before the trailheads.
• Gate hours: WTA's loop guide says the SE 79th gate is open dawn to dusk, and its Bus Trail page says the gate is locked at 7 p.m. Check the posted sign, and park outside the gate if you might come back late.
• Dogs and hours: DNR lists the conservation area as day-use only, requires dogs to be leashed and asks visitors to pack out their trash.

You can also reach the plateau from the west at the Senator Bill Ramos Memorial Trailhead off E Sunset Way. That approach climbs to the Brink and Big Tree area. It works for a longer day that starts from downtown, but it does not reach the flat accessible loop the way High Point does.

Early November is only a target for finishing the work, so the first walks of the month may still pass fresh gravel or a work crew. Whatever stage the work is in, all the trails stay open, and the bus is about a third of a mile up the old logging grade.

At Margo Allan, we spend much of our time looking at ground the way the WTA crews on Tradition Plateau do, checking how water moves across a site and what keeps a path or a shoreline firm through the wet months. If you're weighing a home on the Issaquah side of the lake and want to talk through slope, drainage or the trails close by, reach out and we'll walk it with you.