Middle Fork Snoqualmie River — Sunday, Jun. 22, 2025

The Middle Fork trailhead is an especially nice option on weekends because the lot is really big, so parking nearly guaranteed, and in general the Middle Fork gets you away from the hustle and bustle of I-90 (aside from the craziness at Mailbox Peak). The lot was surprisingly uncrowded when we arrived around 10, maybe half full and no one in the big overflow lot. Headed upstream through the quiet fern cloaked forest, for the first part of the day we mostly saw trail runners. I love the section that is the re-route along the steep hill, it's an impressive bit of trail construction!!

We got as far as the old camp loop at around 4 miles, note that at the ummarked downstream end the loop trail taking off to the left is easily mistaken for the main trail which could confuse some people. We continued to the upstream end where a sign points to "River Access" - descended it and ate lunch at a gravelly river access and then continued back to the main trail on the loop. This downstream part of the loop has some short sections that are highly overgrown with tall ferns in a few places but the trail remains obvious. Although there are campsites noted on the maps we never saw anything I would call a campsite, just one small spot along the river where there's a campfire ring but it would be hard to fit a tent in. 

Saw maybe 30 people altogether, 2/3 of them trail runners. This is a lovely quiet hike in the forest; our stats were 8.9 miles and 980 feet of gain.