Conditioning Again! Lord Hill and Pilchuck Tree Farm

I was having a shitty week and between EDRA board meetings and other schedule conflicts, I wouldn't be able to ride with Cortney. But I made sure to get out by myself because it would be no use if I couldn't condition solo.  Again, I bugged out of work early and grabbed Gwyn. 

She was happy to hop on the trailer and kept looking for a buddy to arrive. 

The yellow is Scotchbloom, which is just EVERYWHERE right now. 

Gwyn was game to climb up the switchbacks to the lookout on the pipeline. She felt stronger than the week prior, which was encouraging to me. 

We took off at a brisk trot up the pipeline, cantering where possible, walking where necessary. 

Then into the woods to loop back and down to the river.

And just reveling in the late afternoon sunlight.

At the river Gwyn was uninterested in swimming or even getting into the water, so we didn't linger.

Then up and past the pond here. I did find an alternate route up from the trail head that wasn't straight gravel road. I might use it as a finishing path rather than walking down the steep gravel and pavement in the future. I did the climb up the switchbacks one more time before realizing that I didn't have much time before the park closed so we turned back to the trailers. At this point, Gwyn fought me about turning around and really wanted to keep going. It was definitely encouraging.

The following Saturday I met Cortney and a new EDRA member, V, at Bracken, Pilchuck Tree Farm. V wanted to see how we condition.  The trip at PTF was more sedate than we would normally do as V's appy was very very slow and V was gaining confidence moving out on the trail with her guy.

It was a gorgeou day and V and Cortney were good companions on the trail. V lives near me so she and I might continue to condition together!

Neither of them were familiar with the trails, so it was up to me to navigate. I don't think I've replicated the same loop twice since I started riding here. I want to get more familiar, but I also appreciate just how many trails there are! There are even trails I haven't touched yet because I didn't know they existed until Cortney pointed them out. She'd ridden here in the past for some events with the rider's association.

The creek was nice to cool off feet before finishing up the ride and I was feeling pretty confident for the endurance ride. 

 

Pilchuck Tree Farm

The fir tree is pollening all over my truck lately and it's GROSS

 Cortney asked me to accompany her to Pilchuck Tree Farm on Sunday so she wouldn't be riding completely solo with a lady who was trying out her Pandora saddle.  I gladly agreed. I never made it to ride there when we lived here last and I always was jealous of the pictures I saw of folks who did ride there.

 My day started fairly early, though due to the time change it wasn't that bad. I made a run to the trash and recycling transfer station to unload my truck and was off to the barn to hitch and load. I ended up running SUPER early, which is unheard of for me. I ended up being incredibly glad I was early/on time though!

I got to the meet point parking lot (there are three places where horse trailers can park to access the trails) and horse trailers started arriving in quick succession after me. There were two there, I was the third, a local rider next to me and Cortney came after. Then a couple strangers. The lot was FULL.

 I was pleasantly surprised that the rider who parked next to me was a face I recognized as I follow her on blogger as well! Aarene of Haiku Farm is a pretty well known voice in the PNW endurance community and the standardbred endurance community as she rides a giant standardbred mare named Fiddle, aka The Dragon. I started following her blog shortly after moving to Michigan so I could live vicariously through her awesome posts (And I do recommend subscribing to her posts or adding them to your feed if you want more of witty, intelligent horse women). She frequents these trails and I've seen many pictures of them through the seasons.

Many thanks to Aarene for taking this photo for me!

This was the last day the single track trails would be open on this side of the tree farm. After Nov 4, the trails would close for the season to preserve the trail integrity but the logging roads would still be available.

 We kept mostly to a walk, as the lady who was purchasing doesn't do much more than and wanted to test ride Cortney's saddle for a ride she would normally do. There was some shuffling of trail order after the lead horses, two geldings started getting upset at continuing on the trail and hadn't  quite settled down to behave yet. Splendid and Gwyn were more than happy to eventually strike out in front which helped pull the boys along and gave them a chance to absorb the chill energy from Gwyn and Splendid, who were both just pleased to be out on the trail.

 Gwyn quickly figured out that we were not racing and while she really just wanted to hug Splendid's butt, she was content to maintain a forward walk.

 The sun was out and while it wasn't particularly warm, especially in the denser forest canopy, it was at least dry and pleasant.

I wish this wasn't so blurry. The ground just dropped away

Looking out toward Lake McMurray to the east

Cortney snapped this picture just a bit further down the trail, again by a steep drop off so I wasn't willing to try. Lake McMurray and looking east toward the Cascades

Magic Forest Trail

 We came out to a familiar sight of the monument. I've seen this a lot on Haiku Farm's blog and also on another blog from someone who has also moved away from the PNW. It was awesome to see the sculpture/monument in person. I didn't realize the thing was hollow and happily, neither Gwyn nor Splendid seemed to care about the sound when we idly knocked in.

The best grass was right at the base.

I did test out the scoot boots again and one foot was good, the other twisted around ridiculously. I ended up taking it off completely. Thankfully the footing wasn't that bad except for some parts of the logging roads where the giant rocks were placed over new culverts. I'm still troubleshooting, though I'm pleased with the change to the EVA foam instead of the Easyboot gaiters for rubbing prevention. Gwyn had NO rubs this ride. Nearly 10 miles.

Gwyn was nice and sweaty by the end and got to snuggle in her cooler. Cortney and I are already planning return trips through the winter. Both here and Taylor mountain should be fairly good through winter, even if some trails are off limits and I want to develop my own sense of direction for the trail network at both places. That's likely going to require some solo wanderings on my part though.