Late start but good skiing on Iron Horse trail

We were all getting a little tired of the chill and ice on the Seattle streets, so Chris and Randy called Sunday morning to suggest that we head up to go skate skiing up at Snoqualmie on the Iron Horse trail. Cath and I were dropping off Theresa at the Amtrack station, so we agreed to meet at REI to rent our stuff. Good idea, except that everyone else had thought of it earlier. We arrived at REI to find R&C looking less chipper than usual, dialing away trying to find some place that was open and had gear. No luck. We hatched a backup plan that involved borrowing snowshoes from Dwayne & Lorelle (very generous!), combined with a wishful thinking plan that had us renting gear from the Nordic center at Snoqualmie. Well, the wish came true. We finally got underway well after 2 pm, and headed down the trail for a great ski. Cath sprained a thumb in a fall in the first few minutes, but managed to keep going and still have fun. It turned out to be a very nice afternoon. We all got back feeling tired and glad we pushed ahead.