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. 

 

Lord Hill Conditioning Ride

The realities of having signed up for an endurance ride FINALLY are sinking in and I realized that I needed to do more than dressage flatwork in prep for Don't Fence Me In. With Cortney's change in work schedule, my flexibility and the fact that summer daylight sticks around in the PNW, a park that closes at dusk can be ridden in after work if you leave just a bit early.  

Skeptical face, no friends have arrived

I left work early, around 3pm. I had already hooked my truck up to my trailer and driven the full rig to work. This let me head straight to the barn. Thankfully, breeches are technically lab appropriate where I work. And boots are obviously closed toe.

We met up at Lord Hill, in the Tester Rd trailhead at 5:15 and were in the saddle before 6pm. The park technically closes at 9pm. For an endurance rider? That's not even an issue.

The day was still a bit warm in the upper 60s but cooled immediately as we hit the shade of the trees. Tester road lot is ideal in many ways because you start at the bottom of the park and you have to climb if you want to go anywhere. So we started with the hill climb on the gravel road up out of parking which brought us to the rock quarry. From there you have a choice of multiple single tracks, going straight up the pipeline (something I've done once and will never try again). We opted for the switchback to get up to the pipeline.

The 'end' of the pipeline

From there we rode the entire pipeline to its terminus at a road at the park boundary. Then turned around and at the first option to leave the pipeline, we hopped off and took some windy single track until we got to the main trail path that you pop out onto if you park at the top of the park. 

That mass of pony tail is gone now, thanks to a hair cut

Since it was warm, we headed down the river trail to let the horses soak in the Snohomish River. There isn't a lot of water on the trail and the little streams we did cross the horses were unwilling to drink out of.

Gwyn immediately plopped herself belly deep in the water and drank and just... sighed happily. 

The river was higher than the last time I was down here, which makes sense since it's fed by snow melt and it is that time of year...

This was a sandy beach the last time I was here. But at least it gave me confidence knowing the footing was solid. 

Because we had dropped back down to the river, below where we'd been at the start, we climbed back up onto the hill and came up through the quarry. Then it was back up the switch backs to avoid the straight pipeline trail.

Cortney poses with Reign at the top of the straight steep trail.

Sunset view from the "top" 

From there we followed the pipeline trail again to its terminus then instead of making a loop, we retraced our steps backwards and all the way down to the trailer. 

The sunset was beautiful in the parking lot and we tried to get the mares to pose together for pictures.

Reign is finally coming around to Gwyn. Gwyn does not trust Reign again.

LOL, for once it's my horse with mareface