Snoqualmie’s Middle Fork to see better access, more options
June 27, 2012
By Lynda V. Mapes
The Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie is a beloved hiking destination, for its proximity to Seattle and its beauty, pretty as anything that takes hours in a car to reach.
It boasts soaring views of Russian Butte and the green slide of the Pratt and Snoqualmie rivers twining through miles of forest.
The treat is about to get even better.
Steve Ringman/The Seattle Times
Mark Boyar surveys the Middle Fork Snoqualmie, which he says he’s been coming to since the Mailbox Peak trail was marked with just a toothbrush. He is known to some as the Man of the Middle Fork for his years of devotion to rehabilitating the place.
More than 10 years in the planning, the Middle Fork is about to get a major makeover, including a nearly $25 million paving project to smooth the access road. Today, the Southeast Middle Fork Road is a horror show of potholes and blowing dust in the summer, and a mud wallow in the winter. The nearly 10-mile paving project is expected to begin in summer 2013 and will make getting to miles of trails easier than ever, perhaps as soon as the fall of 2015.
During the paving project, the road will be closed during the week while the work goes on, but open for recreation access on the weekends.
A trail for easier access
Also in the works is a new trail to Mailbox Peak. This iconic, growling beast of a trail climbs more than 4,000 feet in about two miles, yet is popular with hikers getting in early-season training workouts and others wanting to push their limits.
The nearly vertical billy-goat trail is so precipitous and gnarly it’s been a routine dispatch for King County Search and Rescue teams going to the aid of lost or injured hikers — with nine rescues between August 2007 and February 2010 alone.
“It’s been a problem for years. We didn’t want to close it, but people get into trouble — they don’t know how hard it is,” said Kelly Heintz, natural-areas manager for the Department of Natural Resources Puget Sound Region.
You name it, they’ve done it: gotten lost in the infamous “Sucker Gulch,” a talus patch so-named for its lure to hikers watching their feet on the rolling rocks and roots, then losing the trail. Or hiking without adequate flashlights and getting lost in the dark, brushy trail with its many cliffs. One rescue involved a party of four with one penlight among them.
The DNR has posted the entrance to the trail with multiple warning signs, including this plea to the unwary: “KNOW YOUR LIMITS,” and has marked the trail with a system of reflective diamonds. But people being people, it seemed the best course of action was to provide hikers with a safer alternative.
Necessary basics also coming
The solution got under way recently, as trail crews broke ground on a five-mile alternative trail to the same sweeping views at the top, but with a safer and gentler grade. The old trail will still be open for those who insist, but for those seeking a more reasonable hike, the new trail will open by fall 2013.
The popular destination also will finally get the basics it needs, including a new trailhead, parking in two areas, vault toilets and signage. The improvements will put an end to the haphazard parking on private land, with 70 and more drivers on a weekend trying to find a spot to leave their vehicle by the side of the road.
An old logging road in the Granite Creek Basin also is being decommissioned and converted to a hiking trail, adding more than six miles of improved hiking opportunity by this fall.
A dramatic turnaround
Mark Boyar, of Seattle, said he has been coming to the Middle Fork since the Mailbox Peak trail was marked with just a toothbrush. He’s known to some as the Man of the Middle Fork for his years of devotion to rehabilitating a place once best known for illegal target shooting, trash dumping and meth labs.
The renaissance of the Middle Fork is one of the most dramatic turnarounds for a landscape in the Puget Sound region.
Today fly-fishermen, families, kayakers and hikers flock here for three-season recreation that is only going to get better with the new amenities, right in the heart of the Mountains to Sound Greenway, just minutes off Interstate 90 but seemingly a world away.
The alternative trail to Mailbox Peak will help serve a need that only continues to grow for day hikes in the Seattle region.
“This will provide access for not just the fit or the crazy,” Boyar said.
Paving the road also will attract people who don’t want to beat their car up just to get in some hiking — as well as help improve fish habitat and water quality in the basin. Today, sediment and gravel sluices into the river every winter, and the road boils with dust all summer. Culverts in the road will be replaced, restoring passage for native cutthroat trout to upper reaches of the watershed.
Years in the making
It took years of work to scrape together the money for the projects, including $550,000 for the trail construction, from a variety of state and federal sources as well as the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust.
Greenway staff, board members, including Boyar, and volunteers helped lead the planning effort for the improvements beginning in 1995.
The recreation renaissance under way in the Middle Fork is the product of the sustained work of many hands at county, state and federal agencies, partnering with conservation and recreation groups.
As he hiked to a beloved Middle Fork lookout spot recently, Boyar was following a map inscribed deep in his DNA after years of hiking there. He looked over the sweeping landscape, a sense of satisfaction plain on his face.
“It’s the work of so many people over so long,” Boyar said, scanning the vista toward Mailbox Peak, soon to be within reach for so many more hikers. “It just feels great.”
On the Web
Learn more and volunteer for trail work at http://mtsgreenway.org, www.wta.org or www.trailvolunteers.org.
Learn more about the project at Mailbox Peak this summer through the Postcards from the Peak series written by Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust Trails Project Coordinator Jon Paulson at http://mtsgreenway.org/blog/postcard-from-the-peak.
Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2736 or lmapes@seattletimes.com.
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Kayakers and rafters actually use the Middle Fork year round – not just 3 seasons. I’ve kayaked the Middle Fork in the snow, rain, hail, and sunshine. It’s a great resource. I was glad to see the recent efforts to clean up the day use areas and river access trails that were being used for camping and parties where people left behind trash and burned pallets with nails in them, leading to dangerous conditions. I think it’s great that there is effort going into improving the area.