Moss Lake Adventure

Cortney messaged me part way through last week wondering if I was free on Saturday. Gosh. I was! She was originally planning to do a introductory endurance conditioning ride with someone in the area who was interested in getting into endurance. I was more than happy to join. The new person ended up cancelling (apparently she didn't even have a saddle...?) so it was just Cortney and I after all. 

Cortney was willing to drive closer to me but I wanted to see new trails! So we headed to Moss Lake, between Carnation and Duvall and tucked into the Cascade foothills.

 This gave me the opportunity to put my brand new scoot boots to the test! Now that I have dialed in fit with the used boots I purchased, I decided getting color and new boots was definitely worthwhile. These were my christmas present to myself! When I arrived at the barn to hitch up and load, my path was blocked by the shavings delivery, so I opted to groom Gwyn at the barn and get the boots on her prior to getting on the trailer.

It's spriiiiiiing!

 I had about an hour drive and was disappointed to realize that my driving window which was originally going to happen in the Wait Wait Don't Tell Me Hour was instead going to be in the Coronavirus press conference with the President. Harumph. So that was a great start to the day, listening to that.

All decked out in purple. 

 The trailhead to Moss Lake is part of the King County parks system, though it didn't use to be. As such, there is very limited trailer parking, only two spots really, and the rest for smaller vehicles. But it is a nice lot, with a pit toilet and giant boulders for mounting.

 Gwyn was very happy to see Reign and promptly peed and started winking at her. Bloody mare, Reign is not a dude!

"Mom, you have treats? Reign's mom has treats!"

We set out and I was pleasantly surprised to see a ton of mounting blocks! They fade away once you're out of the park proper and into privately managed logging land.

Ladies holding small dogs are scary

  We were getting occasionally rained upon and both of us were glad for having our rain coats!

My new helmet arrived (this is the one that I fell in) and I'm excited to have a non-damaged one again.

 And then the rain turned to HAIL. Thankfully, we weren't on a logging road, we were under the tree canopy, but I could still feel it pelting my arms and legs. Gwyn's ears immediately pinned and she shook her head when it briefly picked up.

Though, the picture below was taken during the hail fall and she was pretty happy being in front and exploring the trail. Aside from her flirtation at the trailhead, Gwyn was extremely mellow and happy to just be bombing down the trails.

 As we explored around the hills we went in and out of places that accumulated hail. Gradually the rain even stopped, to our delight.

Logged areas

Gwyn's lunch time, she obviously needed to refuel.

 It had been a while since Cortney had ridden here so we did some exploration of unfamiliar trails to see what kind of loops we could create. There was a nice assortment of twisty knee knocker trail under cover, open logging roads, and former twisty knee knocker that now went through logged areas.

 The trails were mostly all labeled, and some even had themes, like Blue Rock trail, which was located by a large blue rock!  Many had small toys hidden in little spots that we enjoyed seeking out as we went along. Someone spent a lot of time placing the toys.

It's just magical

 And eventually, even the sun made an appearance, to our great surprise and pleasure.

Moss Lake through the trees

I love that you can see the big green spike where we galloped up the hill. Reign has a far better motor than Gwyn, or at least was more motivated. Gwyn is very... self preserving, lol. 

Our map. We criss-crossed our path a few times and hit a couple dead ends where the footing either got too sketchy or the trail disappeared. All in the name of exploration!

I went back out today to drop of my board check and to do some basic grooming and acquire bits of information.

Testing my old scoots on her hind feet. Prognosis, hind feet are NOT the same size as the fronts and the heels are SUPER loose.

Also, given that it's getting warmer, Gwyn got a trace clip today. I need to re-waterproof her baker or buy a smaller rain sheet. This one is too big (84") but of course I didn't verify her measurements. I think I could make it fit if I added two more spots for the blanket to snap on the chest. Maybe I'll do that instead.