Lookin' Like Summertime!

Stillaquamish from the Whitehorse Trail

What an incredible seasonal gift of a day!  Almost 50 degrees in December?  The day after Christmas?  Joyce & I had planned to get in a ride after the holiday - as we usually try to do - but what a pleasure to enjoy yet another sunshine day in the Winter!  We parked at the Bracken gate & by our noon meet-up time the lot was full, with trailers still coming & going.  All those riders & we only saw two sets of two on the trails.  We decided to head down to the Whitehorse & walk along the river - such a perfect day to enjoy it.  The heavy footing soon did it's job & both horses settled in for the walk out to the Centennial Trail Arch.

Target & Joyce

The one place on the trail where there's a high bank - a nice sized boulder had broken lose & rolled down the hill to land on the trail.  The large hemlock that's been perched on the very edge is leaning back - soon to break free & slide root ball first down the bank & maybe across the trail.  If it does - it will have to be cut out.  It's a Big one!    You can see the base of it's truck in the upper left corner of the photo below.

Sliding bank~

Once we were out to the arch - we found the Centennial Trail to be a busy place!  Families walking along enjoying the sunshine & warm temperatures.  We turned north & planned to go all the way back to Grandview - it was Targets first time out on a public multi-use trail.  He did amazingly well over the bridge & past bikes, walkers, joggers etc.   The grass on the horse path was still slippery & Farah almost went down - too intent on being ornery rather than paying attention to her feet!  :-)  We turned in on Lake Armstrong road & went back into the tree farm from there.

Creek on the tree farm~

  The footing was really good for so late in the year, not much mud at all & the area's been getting a lot of use!   Today, we reached my mileage goal for the year of 1,400 miles!  Yippee!    As I told Joyce, all those miles & my gold girl still has me riding every stride!  It's a constant give & take with her, I give - she takes!  :-)

Our Ride~

 On our way back though - Farah was dialed back as we headed to the trailers.  At a nice steady trot - Joyce said;  "Nice pace."  I looked & we were doing 8.6 +/-.  With only a few days of this years Derby to go - we're still in fourth place by a few miles!   My Garmin Stats tell me that it's taken 121 rides for us to hit this milestone!   We're hoping for at least one more before year end!