Area: Middle Fork Snoqualmie

Length: 3.4

Elevation: 1020 +430 -415

Condition: good, recently rebuilt

Solitude: medium low

Appeal: low

Features:
access, day use, connectivity

Difficulty: easy

Administered: North Bend RD

Trailhead: Middle Fork Trailhead

Connects to: Middle Fork Trail
Pratt River Trail
Rainy Lake Trail

Guides: none

Maps: Green Trails Mt Si;
USGS Lake Phillipa

 

Overview

Odds are that this trail is not your primary destination. It is entirely comfortable: cool in the river valley, not far to reach, not much distance to hike, no particular elevation challenges. But the flip side of that: it is relatively featureless. The few points with interesting river access are potentially rather dangerous, and best to keep kids away.

What this trail does provide, however, is some unprecedented new connectivity. Before the suspension footbridge at the Middle Fork Trailhead, you had to find a way to cross the vigorous waters of the Middle Fork River (been there, done that) to reach historical Pratt River area.

Today, thanks to the Pratt Connector Trail, all you need is few extra minutes of easy walking and the Pratt River area is open to you. WTA crews did a fine job in restoring this piece of trail.

 

 

Details

Start from the Middle Fork Trailhead lot.

Follow the trail access path through the trees to the suspension footbridge across the river. Immediately after crossing, turn right on the Pratt River Connector Trail, following the river downstream.


The new trail is smooth and easy. Parts of it repurpose historical vehicle tracks.


At 3.4 miles, you will reach a seemingly arbitrary point where the trail maintainers stopped. Whether apparent or not, they have connected to the historical Pratt River access road, over which logs were once stripped out of the valley on an industrial scale. Below this point, the thick-skinned and adventurous might dive into the dense river brush, looking for the site of the historical cable crossing of the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River. But that exercise would be unpleasant, possibly futile, possibly dangerous. Your better choices are to continue on the Pratt River Trail or return.