"Exploring" south on the Snoqualmie Valley Trail~

25-mi. on the SVT

Linnea - always count on her for an interesting ride!   Those of us who are lucky enough to enjoy her company on the trails - have talked of cloning her mare Bizy as a possible source of retirement income!  Bizy is in the best shape of her life. due to the fact that she's such an amazing ride & has three women now vying for time in her saddle!  The mare has had no choice but to get into amazing shape!  :-)  Wish I'd taken a photo of her rear end!   Lynn has plans for the mare - so wanted to do a longer ride & I was happy to oblige!  Then - there's Linnea's knowledge of the different trail systems - clone Lynn?  :-)

As we start down the trail~

We met at the Stillwater parking area south of Duvall & north of Carnation.  The day was cool & overcast - perfect summer riding weather.  The trail was very hard-packed!  Not out to break any speed records, just set a nice traveling pace & enjoy the day.  Farah & Bizy have developed a friendship of sorts - I sneer at you & you glare at me!  :-)  They are amazingly close in body color, with Bizy being a chocolate buckskin & Farah a chocolate palomino (san's mane).

Very nice at the river~

There wasn't much traffic on the trail, the bike riders we did meet were all courteous & let us know when they were coming up.  Much nicer than those of the Centennial Trail - where it's all about how fast they can blow by!  If your horse doesn't do bridges, then this is Not the trail for you!  We ran into a couple endurance riders, new to the trail, having exactly that issue.  I've been noticing that so many riders have these plans for conditioning their horses... Go this far, go this fast, do this, do that...   I think if they'd relax a little on all that planning & just ride the horse for the conditions of that day - they might have more fun, more success & more willing mounts. (Just my two cents.)

We come up on one of the multiple bridge crossings~

We found the Boy Scout camp where our Grandson Mason has camped!  Lynn showed me the multiple parking options - while sharing some of the history of the area - fun!  Then we headed up what was the trails for the Griffin Creek area - also called "Fall City" trails by some.  We got up onto the hill before we hit the fresh logging that obliterated the trail.  We turned back at that point, taking a short-cut down the hill - the bugs were out in Force!

View from the top of our climb~

 I did get to admire the view above & saw just enough, to realize what a Huge loss this trail system was to all the riders of this area...  So sad...  Always appreciative of the trails we do have - it nonetheless saddens me when the few areas of wooded trails that still exist go under the loggers equipment...  Or are sold to private individuals who turn them into their private holdings.

Our turn-back point!

The Google Earth image, dated;  4-30-2009 still shows the acres of intact forest...  not anymore...  Regardless - we had a really Great ride!  Bizy impressed Lynn - moving out & up to a 10-mph trot & holding it for 3-miles!  Faster than anyone thought she could do!  Go Bizy!  We finished up at the trailers at 21-miles, so headed north for a couple more & looped back to get that magic 25 that Lynn was looking for!

Farah came home to fresh bedding in her run & me to smoked ribs!  Can't beat that for a perfect summertime day!