Paradise Valley Conservation Area- Woodinville

I have to give a shout out to my friend, Tracy, who recommended today’s destination, Paradise Valley Conservation Area.  It was a gorgeous sunny day, following what felt like an eternity of rain and darkness, so I threw some things in my pack, grabbed Adventure Dog, and we were off.

This wonderful, close-in nature area features miles of trails meandering through acres of protected forest.  Some trails allow horses and mountain bikes, and there were flat logs with ramps here and there for mountain bikers to climb or balance on or whatever tricks it is they do.  One of the beauties of this place is that the trails are extremely well-marked.  A downside of this is that Tracy helpfully printed me out a color map and even though I had already looked at it and knew which branches I was going to take, I felt I had to look at my map every so often anyway with Bilbo Baggins’ voice echoing in my head, “Oh! I DO love maps!”  : )  The undergrowth was thick with salal, oregon grape, and sword ferns.

There were a lot of large trees down across the trails from the windstorm we had recently, firs, pine, hemlock.  It was sad to see them crashed to earth like that.  On the bright side a lot of the trail around them was blanketed festively with evergreen boughs.  I like to go over logs and Cedar likes to go under which involves a little planning ahead and juggling of the leash.  It was fun.

Not quite as fun was the other reminder of all the recent rain.  Mud.  Most of the time we could get around it pretty well, but we did get a bit muddy… Cedar because he’s so close to the ground, and me because I was trying to rush over an area of less-deep mud and Cedar stopped in front of me, which made me leap into the deep mud to avoid stomping him.

There were raindrops sparking on all the leaves and needles.  This one looked odd, because it was long pine needles caught in the branches of a different tree, and just hanging there. 

Sunlight cut through the canopy and spotlighted random tree branches, undergrowth or patches of mossy bark. 

There were a couple areas that the trees were so thick that it was dark to walk through.  Moss was heavy and green.  My camera, which continues to lie and say it’s out of batteries when it’s not, could not capture the green-ness, but tried.

In one spot I was amused to see that it looked like an elephant had been buried in the trail so that just the top of his head and trunk stuck out.  Don't worry.... I would not have been amused if it was a real elephant.   : )

We stopped for lunch and I had packed Cedar some roast chicken mixed with his dog food so that he would actually eat his food and leave mine alone (smoked salmon and Havarti sandwich- I so spoil me).  As we started eating, I heard an owl hooting from a nearby tree.  We surprisingly didn’t see very many people out walking despite the beautiful weather and it being a weekend.  There were several cars in the lot, so I think maybe it was just because there were so many tracks to choose from.

I had been thinking it didn’t seem so close to Christmas so warm and sunny, but noticed holly trees mixed in with the alders and evergreens.  So pretty.  What a lovely day.  If I read my map right, we did just 3.7 miles and it wasn’t difficult, but definitely pretty.   I will definitely come back and explore some of the other trails next time.