Packrafting the Middle Fork Snoqualmie

Packrafting the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River

Matthew and Eric Gilbertson

April 5-7, 2019

Friday – Hike up Granite Creek trail to Thompson Lake, descend to lower unnamed lake, paddle and camp near lake
Saturday – Hike to Middle Fork Snoqualmie, put in packrafts, paddle down to river side camp
Sunday – Paddle back to car, drop Matthew off at airport

Matthew had flow up to Seattle for work, and had just bought a new packraft, so we decided to do a paddling adventure over the weekend. We were looking for a good multi-day paddle in some wilderness, and originally considered some rivers in Olympic National Park. However, it looked extremely wet all weekend, so we modified plans to do a trip closer to Seattle on the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River.

I got the trip idea from a similar trip posted by NorthBen on nwhikers from 2016. The plan was to park at the Granite Creek trailhead and hike up to an alpine lake to paddle around and camp near the first night. Then we would bushwhack down to the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River and hike up as far as possible before putting in again. Then we’d paddle directly back to the car. The great part about this trip is no car shuttle or bike plant is required, just hiking and paddling.

We packed up and left the Granite Creek trailhead around noon on Friday. I’d skied this trail back in February, but it was now snow free in the lower elevations. We hiked up the old road grade until we reached about 2,000ft where it started to get snow covered. It also started raining then, and got kind of miserable.

We postholed up deeper and deeper snow until we reached the turnoff for Thompson Lake. By then it was precipitating very hard, and was a mix of rain and snow. We hiked through the woods, over a pass, then dropped down to Thompson Lake. Our grand plan had been to paddle out to an island in the lake and camp there,

but unfortunately the lake was still frozen and covered with snow.

However, we found after traversing left around the lake that there was a lower lake that was partially melted. We descended to this lake, and got a little bit of paddling in. It was still raining and snowing, but we found a sheltered semi-flat area beneath dense fir trees that was surprisingly dry. We set up a big tarp, then put the tent under it. That night we had a big fire that helped dry out some clothes.

In the morning it was snowing hard, and we packed up and started the bushwhacking leg of the adventure. The plan was to bushwhack down to the Pratt River trail, then follow that trail down. Luckily the trees weren’t too dense, and we made it down in a few hours. As the terrain leveled out we followed an old road grade to the Pratt River.

The river was pretty big, but didn’t look safe to paddle given all the trees across it. We found a good logjam to cross, then met up with the Pratt River trail. The trail was in tough shape but we descended down the trail to the edge of the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River. A few other hikers were ascending, and I think their destination may have been some of the alpine lakes deeper in the woods.

We followed the trail up along the river, past a hiker bridge and a big landslide, and decided to put in around 4pm.

Unfortunately it started raining hard during our transition, but we got the boats inflated and soon began the paddle. The river was fun, with lots of class II rapids, and around 5pm we found an excellent gravel bar to make camp. We strung up the tarp again, and had another fire to dry stuff out.

The next morning we started paddling around 8am under intermittent rain showers. The views of Garfield and other freshly snow-covered peaks above were very impressive, especially as they were partially shrouded in fog. The river was more class II/III fun rapids for a few more hours.

After passing under the Concrete bridge we went another mile or so farther down river and took out at the Mine Creek Campground takeout. From there it was about 0.5 mile walk back to the car.

 

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