Legacy of Bridle Trails - The Gallop’n Gerties
Excerpted from a piece by Lorraine Trosper for
The Kirkland Courier in Feb. 1998

One of the aspects of Bridle Trails is all the colorful characters who gravitated to the this community because of their love of horses and the natural beauty of our beloved Bridle Trails State Park.

There is one group of ladies that some of you who have lived around here for a while may have heard about or even known. That group was the “Gallop’n Gerties”. I heard a lot about them when I moved here, but Lorraine Trosper was lucky enough to have known several of them personally. The following is out of a piece Lorraine wrote for the Kirkland Courier in 1998.

According to Lorraine, the “Gerties” came together in 1946 as an offshoot of the Lake Washington Saddle Club. A group of “older” ladies who enjoyed each other’s company, they decided to ride together every Thursday. Lester Jones, the then president of the Saddle Club, christened them “The Gallop’n Gerties.” There were no dues, no by-laws and no projects.

Originally they met at various homes – not only in Bridle Trails, but also in rural downtown Bellevue, Hunts Point and Clyde Hill – all of which were rideable in those days. In fact, one Gertie, Dottie Copeland, lived and kept horses on Wilburton Hill on the site of what is now the Bellevue Botanical Gardens, riding through Bellevue to get to the Park. Another Gertie rode all the way from Mercer Island.

After six or seven years of gathering at different homes for lunch and/or to start their rides, they met at Mel O’Farrell’s tack room on 132nd NE across from the Park. Then, Mel’s husband, Larry, built them their very own clubhouse which the Gerties decorated with memorabilia and furnished with stools made from horse-shoe nail kegs donated by Bill Farnham, a very well-known farrier of that era, whose wife, Eleanor, was a Gertie as well. If weather kept the Gerties lunching instead of riding during the winter, it was always “Back in the Saddle again” come spring.

In addition to riding locally, once a year they'd take a three or four day pack trip. The Gerties trailered their steeds all over the state. One such trip, which was written up by feature writer, Byron Fish, of the Seattle Times, had the Gerties trailering their horses up a logging road in the West Fork Teanaway country. Coming close to the top of a particularly steep, narrow pitch, one rig became stuck. The horses were unloaded and led across the "hump" only to find the leading rigs face-to-face with a 30 ton loaded logging truck. Guess who backed up? Those Gerties must have been pretty formidable.

The Gerties also had a drill team, which often led parades through downtown Bellevue. Every year they had Christmas parties with their husbands as guests, and several delivered newspapers on horseback in Kirkland and around the Clyde Hill and Hunts Point areas.

Many of the Gerties rode regularly into their late 70's and most of those that are still with us are in their late 80's and early 90's by now. Sarah Sharp, who used to live in Silver Spurs moved to Carnation where she raised qurter horses. Isabelle Moe, who used to judge many Saddle Club shows, lives in Enumclaw and still teaches pony-driving to kids. Most, sadly, are gone, as are their beloved horses, but they have some wonderful memories. A couple of them told Lorraine that it was now easier to remember the names of the horses than the names of the other Gerties, but their special friendships and many adventures will never be forgotten.

By now, most of you know that the Bridle Trails Park Foundation is just over 2 years old. It's purpose is to raise money to pay half the uncovered operating costs of Bridle Trails State Park. For our commitment, the State Parks and Recreation Commission has agreed to keep Bridle Trails open and operating as an equestrian/pedestrian park now and into the future. The agreement runs for 40 years as long as we continue to meet our commitment. Failure on our part would give the State cause to terminate this agreement.

The Parks Department gets their operating money from the legislature. Over the last 20 years their funding has been reduced so far that they've had to close some park and give away or sell others. That was about to happen to Bridle Trails three years ago, and could happen again if we fail to meet our commitment. They could just close it, but that would create it’s own problems – no law enforcement, overgrown and blocked trails, a haven for vagrants and druggies. In time, it would probably be sold off to developers and the cornerstone of our community would be gone forever. That’s why we count on your continued support to help us keep our Park open for generations to come.

With 5 years to ramp up to our full 50% share, we have only 3 years till we’ll be having to pay between $35,000 - $50,000 a year. That’s a lot to raise every year after the perception that the danger of closure is past. And as we’ve grown, the cost of doing business (printing, postage, presentation materials, training courses, etc., and eventually some paid staff) has continued to grow as well. That, and allowing for inflation, required us to revise the estimate of what we need to raise to at least $2 million. The sooner we can do this, the better chance we have of staying ahead of inflation. The emergency may seem to be over for now, but it’s just a payment away, if we should ever fail to meet our commitment.

The good news is that we have now raised more than $185,000 with almost 800 families contributing. But we still have over $1.5 million to go. We need to reach that $2 million mark within the next 5-6 years so we can use its to help us stay ahead of the inflation rate.

It has been determined that if every park user, supporter, and area resident were to donate $100.00 per year, we would have no trouble reaching our goal. So we're working at finding a way to reach and connect with everyone out there whose lives are impacted in some way by the existence of Bridle Trails State Park. That’s where each of you comes in.

It’s exciting to see people come up with such a variety of ways to contribute. There’s the tried and true check or cash style, which is always welcome, but some people have been going a step further. They have donated in other people’s name as memorials to friends or loved ones who have passed away, as birthday or holiday gifts, they have named the Foundation in their wills and as beneficiaries of their IRA’s, and they have even given blocks of stock. We’ve had people hold garage sales, tack sales, car washes, and even some kids who have been holding pony washes (or horse grooming) to raise money for the cause. And one person contributed a dollar a day for the whole year.

We have several real estate agents who have pledged to give as a result of home sales in the area. Coldwell Banker Bain and their Associates, Beth Billington, Bob Guinn, Wendy Lister, and Katherine Morris have already donated and Diane Coates and Rebecca Rodda have offered to do the same. Pamela Woods of ReMax has promised and donated out of her commissions as well. To activate these agents' services, you must ask them to do this when you hire them as your agent.

Our mail list is growing and we keep trying to reach out to those who may not have heard about our efforts yet. One of the ways we would like to employ to connect with people and share with them what we are trying to do is to go out and make presentations. We are asking people in different neighborhoods to host a coffee/dessert evening in their homes for some of their neighbors so we can come in and tell them about our work. If you would be willing to do this, please call Suzanne Kagen at 425-828-6432, Jennifer Duncan at 425-867-0992, or Lorraine Trosper at 425-822-9861, to sign up as a Bridle Trails Park Foundation presentation host.

If you are one of those who already supports the efforts of the Foundation, we greatly appreciate your help and hope you will continue to do so. If you have not gotten involved, we ask that you consider doing so.

As the new year rolls around, many of you who have purchased State Parks annual parking passes will be getting “renewal notices”. Since our Foundation is responsible for half of the “uncovered” operating costs, anything that creates revenue for Bridle Trails thus reduces the operating costs and the amount the Foundation is responsible for. However, if you receive one of those renewal notices, please DO NOT send it back to Olympia. They are not set up down there to credit a payment on one of these to a particular park. Soooo, to make sure it gets credited to Bridle Trails, if you would, we would appreciate it if you would send it in to Ranger, Mary Welborn, c/o Lake Sammamish State Park, 20606 SE 56th St., Issaquah, WA 98027.

If you haven’t purchased an annual park pass, you might want to consider it. As it is now necessary to either purchase a $5.00/day parking pass every time you visit a State Park or have in your car an annual pass, it is a far better deal to get the annual pass if you frequent this park or any other more than 10 times a year. An annual parking pass can be purchased from Ranger Mary for $50.00 (and please indicate it should be credited to Bridle Trails) and is good at any State Park across the state for 1 year from date of issue.

What do you do to keep warm on a cold and snowy winter’s day? Next year you might consider joining these brave people who came out Saturday, January 8th, to participate in the Bridle Trails Winter Trail Running Festival, put on by the Seattle Running Club. As you may recall, the daytime temperature was in the low 40’s and dipped into the low 30’s after the sun set, and snow started falling around midnight.

If you happened to see lights moving through the park that night, this was the group you were looking at. Most of the 250 or so people who showed up to participate ran either in the 5K that started at 3:00 in the afternoon, or the 10K which started a few minutes later. Then the really hardy souls lined up for the starter’s gun at about 3:15 for the 50 miler – that’s right, I said 50 miles. And, yes, that would take them into the late night hours.

As much as I love walking and riding through our park, I cannot imagine running through it in the winter, and the thought of running through it in the dark and in winter, just blows me away. These folks have been making this run every year for almost a decade now. They strap headlamps on and off they go.

Scott Mc Coubrey, of the Seattle Running Company, who oversees this event, told me that runners have an 8 hour minimum to finish the run. After that, if everyone isn’t back and accounted for, they send out searchers to sweep the course for someone who may be hurt or lost. Haven’t heard of any untoward incidents yet.

This is just the first of many events that will be held in the Park this year. There will, of course, be our 3rd Annual Party in the Park, on Saturday, June 25th, horseshows put on by several different saddle clubs including the Lake Washington Saddle Club and other running events. These are free to spectators and they often have the cookshack open or munchies available.