​Looking down Pratt River valley toward Middle Fork Snoqualmie and Bessemer mountain.  Photo: Harry Romberg

​Snoqualmie

Pratt River valley seen looking SE from Bessemer mtn., added to Alpine Lakes Wilderness in 2014

The Snoqualmie area comprises the southwest quadrant of the Alpine Lakes region. It is accessed mostly via Interstate 90 and includes the drainage basins of the North, Middle and South forks of the Snoqualmie river. 

One of the few remaining areas of old growth in the South Fork, along Mason Lake trail, seen near center of photo. Photo: Kevin Geraghty

SOUTH FORK:
On the west side of Snoqualmie Pass, Interstate 90 passes through the valley of the South Fork Snoqualmie watershed, a place once described by a Seattle Times columnist as a "60 mile long billboard of terrible logging practices."  That merciless overcutting turned the South Fork Snoqualmie into by far the most developed and degraded part of the Alpine Lakes Region.

Much of the South Fork Snoqualmie was owned by Weyerhaeuser timber company. Despite the propaganda they put out for decades about “sustained yield forestry,” their actual policy was to cut every tree on every acre they owned. Their ownership was interspersed with Forest Service in an alternating checkerboard pattern dating from the 1864 Northern Pacific land grant. Since Weyerhaeuser was determined to put in roads everywhere and cut all of their sections, the Forest Service also went along and cut almost as much off their sections as did Weyerhaeuser.

The result looked like a moonscape for many years. As bad as it looked, it may have helped spur the efforts that led to large reductions in the cut levels on northwest National Forests. It was impossible not to see the wholesale stripping away of old growth forests that really did go on and on for sixty miles.

Eventually, parts of it did regreen to some extent, though it will never again be what it was before the liquidation. Many private sections were acquired by the Forest Service through purchase or land exchanges, after they were stripped bare. This policy was opposed by many conservationists who objected to scarce Land and Water Conservation Fund dollars going to purchase logged off lands simply because they were visible from Interstate 90. It was an easy way for Weyerhaeuser to get out of its most visible sins, clean up its image and pass on its problems to the Forest Service. This was largely financed with taxpayers' dollars as other, more valuable conservation lands were neglected.

Despite this treatment, some natural areas have survived in the South Fork in places with too few trees to be worth building roads to and cutting. A number of trails reach lakes or viewpoints, many of them heavily used thanks to easy access from Interstate 90.
​

Looking E from Dog mountain at head of N Fk Snoqualmie toward Mt. Garfield. Photo: Kevin Geraghty

Small ridgetop lake on N Fk Snoqualmie - Tolt divide. The only trees left standing by Weyerhaeuser on their entire holdings. Photo: Kevin Geraghty

​NORTH FORK:
The North Fork Snoqualmie is the least known and least visited of the three Snoqualmie forks. Most of the watershed was also owned by Weyerhaeuser, in a solid block rather than checkerboard pattern. It was once one of the most richly forested valleys on the west side of the Cascades, covered in miles of huge Douglas fir. Thus it attracted the attention of Weyerhaeuser's timber cruisers from the very beginning of their time in Washington state. Those private lands were all cut by Weyerhaeuser, leaving literally nothing standing. Weyerhaeuser sold those lands in the 2000s decade, and they have since passed through multiple ownerships.

The upper North Fork watershed is within the Mt. Baker Snoqualmie National Forest. Those lands are the ones Weyerhaeuser did not want back in the 1800's. Sadly, almost every area of semi-valuable forest has also been cut there. A few areas of lesser timber value, but still nice older forest do survive in the Sunday creek and Lennox creek valleys.

​The upper North Fork Snoqualmie basin can be reached via the long, rough North Fork county road from North Bend. It is a seemingly unending drive through intensively managed commercial tree farm country where it is a rare tree that lives more than 25 years. But that long rough access does lead one to a fairly remote and uncrowded area by modern standards.

MIDDLE FORK:
The Middle Fork is by far the largest of the three Snoqualmie forks. Its watershed supplies close to two thirds of the water to the mainstem Snoqualmie. The Middle Fork watershed is almost all public land, and it has attracted by far the most conservation attention among the three Snoqualmie forks.

ALPS involvement in the Middle Fork goes way back. The original 1976 bill establishing the Wilderness omitted all but the headwaters of the Middle Fork's major tributary, the Pratt river, because of the Forest Service's insistence that it was “high quality timberland.” The idea that Wilderness designation was best kept for rocks and ice rather than trees was still widespread then.

A large timber sale was laid out in the forested Pratt river valley in 1987. This sale generated a lot of opposition and bad publicity for the Forest Service, which eventually withdrew the sale. For a comprehensive background on the battle for the Pratt, see the 2015 edition of the ALPS newsletter “Alpine,” archived on the ALPS website.

Having turned back the roading and cutting of the Pratt valley, ALPS and other conservationists saw that the real prize was not just the Pratt, but the entire Middle Fork watershed. Thus began a 30 year long effort to turn around the hitherto neglected and abused Middle Fork valley, which is the closest Cascade mountain valley to Seattle. A separate group dedicated just to the Middle Fork, called the Middle Fork Outdoor Recreation Coalition (MidFORC,) was formed.

The Middle Fork is a big valley. Most of it was already in public ownership, mostly National Forest, but significant parts were in private hands, particularly in the lower valley. Most of the lower and middle valley had been logged, but considerable areas of older and old growth forest had been bypassed and still remained. Most of the logging had occurred before replanting was a requirement, and those areas had been growing back spontaneously and naturally, not with cloned and cultured “high yield supertrees.” Thus, these forests were looking quite natural and well on their way to once again becoming old growth.

The Old Middle Fork. Photo: Kevin Geraghty

The Old Middle Fork. Photo: Kevin Geraghty

The Old Middle Fork. Photo: Kevin Geraghty

The Old Middle Fork. Photo: Kevin Geraghty

The Middle Fork had other problems, though. It had become infamous as a place to avoid. It attracted a sometimes unsavory crowd. It was a place of garbage dumping, shot-up abandoned cars, and endless, sometimes wild, shooting. The main road was long and very rough. Turnoffs and spur roads were home to an endless number of “dispersed campsites,” as they were euphemistically called. Almost all of them were in fact squalid, garbage strewn, muddy messes. There may have been beautiful natural country just off the roads, but the view from the roads was of a mountain slum.

An entire book could be, and perhaps someday will be written about the campaign to civilize the Middle Fork. Various public processes were convened, laying out the problems and proposed solutions. Pressure mounted on the two main land managers to do something. For years, the Forest Service did very little, but the North Bend office of the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) took the lead. The awful “dispersed campsites” were closed off one by one. A group called “Friends of the Trail” took on the gigantic task of cleaning up and hauling out innumerable piles of garbage, and miraculously accomplished it. Eventually, even the Forest Service was pressured into agreeing to the cleanups and closures.
​

Middle Fork river seen looking west, below Garfield Mountain. Photo: Kevin Geraghty

Numerous initiatives were pursued to turn the valley around. ALPS members traveling to Washington DC lobbied for money for a new Forest Service campground, and to upgrade and pave the Middle Fork road. Land exchanges consolidated most of the valley into public ownership, particularly in the lower, DNR managed part of the valley where DNR exchanged into nearly 10,000 acres. DNR then went on to protect almost all of its Middle Fork holdings, and today the Mt. Si and Middle Fork Natural Resources Conservation Areas total almost 23,000 acres. All of this progress on DNR lands occurred thanks to a conservation oriented staff at its North Bend office, and two sympathetic and thoughtful Commissioners of Public Lands, Jennifer Belcher, and later, Peter Goldmark.

ALPS' longstanding effort to permanently protect the Pratt valley gained speed when then Congressman Dave Reichert introduced a bill to add the Pratt and other nearby areas to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness in 2007. Senator Patty Murray later joined that effort on the Senate side, and the Pratt was added to the Wilderness at the end of 2014.

​The forests on both Federal and state lands in the Middle Fork were thus knitted together into one seamless whole. The area of protected mature and older lowland forest likely well exceeds 25,000 acres, the largest area of such forest anywhere so near to Puget Sound.
​

Springtime in a Middle Fork wetland. Photo: Kevin Geraghty

Former WA Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark at giant cedar in Middle Fork valley (since fallen.) Photo: Mark Boyar

Today's Middle Fork is a much different place than it was in 1990. No one wants the problems of the old Middle Fork back, but it can sometimes seem like one set of problems were traded for a different set of problems. Perhaps the older problems were worse than today's problems, but today's problems are real. On weekend days when the weather is nice, the crowding is phenomenal. Days when over a thousand cars drive up the Middle Fork road are now common. There are not places for a thousand cars to park, so they will inevitably get parked along that one narrow road, leaving little room for other cars going in or out.
The huge number of visitors has led to an epidemic of user built “bootleg trails.” These always get publicized on the internet. Since they are just cleared and flagged routes, not properly constructed trails, the heavy use inevitably turns them into muddy messes. They spread the impacts of crowding far and wide, and continuously shrink the remaining quiet wildlife habitat. There seems to be little that can be done to stop it.
​

The idea of limiting access for private cars, and having some sort of shuttle, as in Yosemite valley has been discussed. But the many costs and difficulties of such a scheme make it look very unlikely. There is really no business case for it, since a fleet of shuttles would be hugely expensive, and would largely sit idle on the many bad weather days. And people mostly want to drive their own cars, difficult as that may be on a sunny Saturday in the Middle Fork.

Edward Abbey once wrote “bad roads act as filters.” The Middle Fork road now no longer functions as a filter, except on days when endless lines of cars can serve as one. Many of those who spent years of time and effort on the Middle Fork don't even think of going there anymore. Some feel regretful, at least about the road paving. The valley is now like a mountain version of Yogi Berra's favorite restaurant, of which he supposedly said: “nobody goes there any more, it's too crowded.”

Hikers, really people in general, are herd animals. 95% of the people always go to 5% of the places, especially in the age of social media. Most of the Cascades, even most of the Alpine Lakes country, is still a wild and lonely place for those with imagination enough to avoid the crowded spots. Maybe the best way to think of today's “civilized” Middle Fork is as a sacrifice zone, drawing in the numberless hordes to one very heavily used area, leaving the rest of the Cascades for those who prefer to be far from the madding crowd

Former WA Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark signs order creating the Middle Fork Natural Resource Conservation Area, 2009.

​Despite all the crowding problems, the Middle Fork can still be a very attractive place. Those extensive, beautiful forests are all still there. Just be sure to go there on a wet, dark and dreary day. After all, forests are at their most mysterious when the clouds are brushing up against the treetops.​

Looking down into upper Pratt River valley. Photo: Harry Romberg

Marten Lake and valley. Photo: Kevin Geraghty

Forest on lower Green Ridge in Middle Fork Snoqualmie. Photo: Kevin Geraghty

Looking east up Middle Fork valley from lower slopes of Quartz mountain. Photo: Kevin Geraghty

Looking east up Middle Fork valley from near top of Quartz mountain. Photo: Kevin Geraghty

Oxbow lake in lower Middle Fork valley. Photo: Kevin Geraghty

Looking down Pratt River valley, Bessemer mountain in distance. Photo: Harry Romberg

Looking upriver along Middle Fork Snoqualmie, upstream of Taylor River confluence. Photo: Kevin Geraghty

Beaver pond in Pratt River valley. Photo: Kevin Geraghty

Back channel slough in lower Middle Fork valley. Photo: Kevin Geraghty

Senator Patty Murray and former Congressman Dave Reichert hold press briefing during Pratt Wilderness campaign.