The public meeting is open to all. It begins with a social hour at 6:30 p.m. with refreshments, maps and handouts.

The official meeting starts at 7 p.m. The group will discuss its 2014 accomplishments and goals for the upcoming year.

Lorrie Peterson, program manager for Bellevue’s Parks and Community Services Department will be the guest speaker.

Peterson will talk about Bellevue’s greatly improved Coal Creek Trail, which now has better connections to Newcastle.

The group will also elect officers and hold an open discussion.

Newcastle Trails is a volunteer organization focused on the preservation, expansion and maintenance of the city’s trails. Learn more at www.newcastletrails.org.

Garry Kampen

This year is the 20th anniversary of Newcastle, a small city that ranks high in livability, and the 15th anniversary of Newcastle Trails, a nonprofit citizens group that has worked for parks, trails and open space, in close cooperation with the city, since 1999.

I’m writing to celebrate Newcastle’s amazing and still-growing trail system, and to encourage you to explore it and enjoy it. Check NT’s website, www.newcastletrails.org; download our latest map and trail guide; join NT by emailing info@newcastletrails.org (for trail news, no dues); attend our Oct. 6 board meeting (7 p.m. at Regency Newcastle); and consider volunteering for the board, or lending a hand with trail work, computer work (GIS, web, writing), lobbying, fundraising — whatever you’d like to do.

Newcastle’s trails are part of a regional network used by walkers, joggers, cyclists and equestrians. The city lies within a Grand Loop, a triangle of trail corridors with its base on the existing Lake Washington Trail (future Eastside Rail Trail) and its apex in Cougar Mountain.

The sides of the triangle are the May Creek Greenway (mostly in Newcastle) and the Coal Creek section of the Mountains to Sound Greenway (mostly in Bellevue). The triangle is crossed north-to-south by Coal Creek Parkway (continuous sidewalks) and the heavily used Waterline Trail (few sidewalks, many trees), with downtown Newcastle and Lake Boren Park sandwiched between.

You can walk the loop and its cross-trails now, with two exceptions: Renton’s May Creek Trail (partly complete, bridge needed), and the parkway underpass for the Coal Creek Trail (due soon). The Grand Loop is mostly wooded nature trails: The May Creek and Coal Creek trails include creeks, waterfalls, bridges, historic sites and sections of an old railroad; the Terrace Trail has switchbacks, lovely rock steps, views, fallen trees and giant moss-covered boulders. The Marshall’s Hill and Red Town trails (in Cougar Mountain Wilderness Park) link wilderness trails with the remains of Old Newcastle and its coal mines.

The west-to-east CrossTown Trail is Newcastle’s major urban trail (nature trails and sidewalks), a central connector linking schools, parks, neighborhoods and north-south trails. It starts near 116th Avenue Southeast and Newcastle Way, and winds past or through Hazelwood Elementary School, Hazelwood Park, Donegal Park, the historic Newcastle Cemetery and Lake Boren Park, continuing on sidewalks to Beit Tikvah and, after a gap, southeast along the DeLeo Wall (woods, views) from Newcastle Vista to Cougar Mountain.

Fall projects include new trail signs citywide, and changes to the CrossTown Trail: rerouting it at the new middle school and the planned Renton School District Newcastle development (between Olympus and Hazelwood), and rebuilding sections of trail between Newcastle Vista and Cougar Mountain.

Newcastle’s trail system has benefited from the cooperation of many groups, including Renton, Bellevue, King County and the Issaquah Alps Trails Club (check their websites for trail maps and guided walks). Volunteers were also essential. Much of the trail work was done by Boy Scouts, and parents, from Newcastle’s Hazelwood Troop, and other troops from Bellevue, Kirkland and Renton.

The Coal Creek YMCA will host a family trail walk along the rebuilt Coal Creek Trail from 10 a.m. – noon Saturday.

Walkers will congregate at the trailhead in the YMCA parking lot before taking to the 1.5-mile trail to the Red Town Trailhead.

YMCA members and nonmembers are invited, as are singles and families.

Much of the trail follows the route of the historic Seattle and Walla Walla railroad, and a Newcastle Trails volunteer will point out waterfalls, historic sites and entrances to mine shafts along the way. The trail also passes through the site of old Newcastle, which was a mining town in the late 1800s.

The YMCA will provide free food and drinks at the end of the walk, including a free shuttle back to the YMCA.

The trail includes stairs and bridges and is not suitable for wheelchairs of strollers.

Morgan released the first map that used GPS data to Newcastle Trails in June, and his latest map, which he gave to the organization at the end of September, makes minor corrections and clarifications. After Newcastle Trails’ board of directors approves the new map, it will be available to hikers and trail users online and in paper brochures.

The map Morgan released in June was a big step forward, Newcastle Trails President Garry Kampen and Treasurer Peggy Price said. In addition to being accurate, the map omitted most trails that have not yet been built (as opposed to the group’s planning map, which has all planned trails as well as actual trails on it) and showed how Newcastle’s trails link up with the Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park and Bellevue’s Coal Creek trail systems.

Price emphasized that the old map was much less user friendly.

“Such a map is not terribly helpful to hikers, who simply want to know where they can walk,” Price said.

Kampen added that Morgan walked nearly every path in the city that wasn’t a sidewalk.

“He did a really heroic job in walking just about every walkable trail in the city, even some that weren’t on our formal map,” Kampen said. “More of what’s on the ground is actually showing on the new map.”

Morgan has mapped for seven years, mapping trails on Squak Mountain for the Issaquah Alps club, in Enumclaw and in the Rock Creek area of Maple Valley. He said he was unfamiliar with Newcastle’s trails system before taking part on the project, and that it was his constituents at the Issaquah Alps who put him in touch with Newcastle Trails.

“It was kind of a different experience for me,” he said, as his previous mapping duties have been in undeveloped areas. He said it was surprising how quickly the city’s trails take hikers from developed areas into forested areas with wildlife.

He mapped the area over the course of about six hiking trips, traveling between three and seven miles each day. After his hikes, he would offload the data he collected on his Garmin 60CSX GPS, and use a geographic information system computer program to map the trails.

Morgan performed all of his mapping duties without taking a fee.

Newcastle Trails posts trails maps on its website, www.newcastletrails.org, under the “Trail Map (PDF)” link.

The Coal Creek YMCA will host its first family trail walk at 10 a.m. Oct. 24.

The 1.5-mile walk will begin at the Coal Creek YMCA, and proceed down the new trail connecting the YMCA parking lot to the Coal Creek Trail.

The walk will follow the Coal Creek Trail upstream until reaching the Red Town Trailhead of Cougar Mountain Park. Organizers said the walk follows the old Seattle and Walla Walla railroad most of the way, and passes by waterfalls and historic sites.

Historian Milt Swanson will open his coal-mining museum to visitors arriving at Red Town.