River Trail @ Moss Lake & Beyond!

Moss Lake

Well, we knew it was supposed to get Warm!  Into the 80's & the weatherman wasn't wrong today - as we were over 20 degrees above normal for the date!  Since neither us or our mares are used to this kind of heat - we picked a place where we'd be in the forest & Lynn wanted to explore the trails that were on the map - but new to us both!

Farah survey's the river~

River Trail was first on our planned route & it was technical!   I would venture that it was the most technical trail that Farah has done yet & she did it amazingly well!  I was very proud of the way she sat down, slid down & made the tight turns - thinking about what she was doing.  At the bottom, there was only room for one horse - so we moved into the river to give Lynn & Sophie room to get down.

In the creek~

It was gorgeous!   Warm, humid, buggy, but we didn't mind.  Once across we had a climb up another trail - a really Good Climb!  At one point, the trail got instantly narrow, angling down & below was a large cable coming off the side of the hill.  One mistake here & you'd have a horse caught on that cable & my mind couldn't even comprehend that!  A place where you say a quick prayer & keep going forward...

No idea what this facility is~

We came out at the facility above - neither of us know what it is - but it must usually hold water.  Here - we crossed the road & were on the Tolt Pipeline trail.  We followed it until we found a gate that we could get around to head up into the hills there - that had been logged.

We start the climb~

 Originally there were trails on this side, but we couldn't find any - if they still exist?  It was getting darn hot in the sunshine but we wanted to see where we could go!

White cap mountain views!

As we went up - the views opened up!  Magnificent with snow still on the Cascades.  Then we turned & behind us were the Olympics!

Olympics~

They too are still covered in snow - but with the next couple warm days - that snow will be melting quickly!  Moving on - we found some nice old logging roads & a sign saying that we were on Hancock Timber property.  Just from what we rode - there must be miles & miles of old logging road.  How much of them are open is the question.

Mt. Rainier

We ended up going back down the road that we'd come up on.  But on our way - the view of Mt. Rainier greeted us.   According to my Garmin - we did 1,594 ft. of elevation gain on this ride & it felt like it!  The mares were covered with sweat, but they both kept right on truckin'~

By the time we were back to the parking area, still the only trailers there - the heat of the day was oppressive.  We'd covered almost 15-miles in just over four hours.  Another amazing day in the Great Northwest!