this trail/road is in great shape with a lot of recent, heavy duty construction work. only saw 3 other people, which for the mid-fork snoqualmie is pretty much desolation... salmonberries are out. no trail issues. would be interesting to explore the parts of the road that are not actual trail and see where it leads. the brand-spanking new mid-fork campground was empty as well. strange, given it's primo location, brand new picnic tables, etc.

This trail run was going to be the nicest and greatest of the year so far. Or so we thought. We have run all of the trails listed but we were never on the Pratt River Trail. Since it is a nice solid line on the map we figured it would be this wonderfully maintained 14 mile connector trail from the outlet of Pratt Lake down to the Middle Fork. Were we wrong!! The 3 of us left at 7am from the Pratt Lake Trailhead at exit 47 after leaving a car at Mount Si. The run was wonderful up and over and down to Pratt Lake. We found the little mystery trail on the outlet of Pratt Lake. (Pass the log-jam and cross via the boulders.) There is a ribbon that you might see on the opposite side. The trail is there and although not maintained it is easy to follow. Once on it, I took a classic tumble on wet moss that sent me flying as well as my water bottle. You know that you have friends when they are laughing and yelling that they saw my two hands touched down. So I fell? I buy 'em each two beers. Reaching the Pratt River after descending this trail we crossed with water level about thigh deep. Fast yet not difficult. My wife looked like a Hyena pacing up and down the banks she was so nervous. Not the greatest river crosser but after some coaching she made it. Look for ribbons and you will be okay. You will climb out from the river and eventually head in a North to NW direction on an abandoned road grade. North by NW and you will not go wrong. You may lose it once in a while but it is always there. Numerous tributeries made for numerous crossings. Not heinous crossings but Dustin took a classic tumble in one of them that left him wet and cold for most of the day. He definately won fall of the day. You will not see anyone on this trail. It was not the rolling grade that we thought but, after all, it was a trail run. Eventually you will approach the Middle Fork but as you get within a mile or so of the river the brush begins to get thick. No devils club but not the smoothest miles. If you are a small person you may have a better time because as the trail turned upstream along the river the brush made one stoop over thru a tunnel of no fun bramble. The trail is there just have patience and soon you will arrive at the river bed. Continue in the river bed looking for a slightly hidden cairn-marked trail on your right.You are travelling with the river upstream and you will eventually reach the Gateway Bridge and the Middle Fork Trailhead. This is about 20 miles from exit 47. Head about 3.2 miles down the Middle Fork Road(56)(downstream) and you will see a new trail marked, CCC trail. DO not go this way!! Continue on until your altimeter reads about 960 feet and you will see large boulders and barriers on the right side of the road. This is the eastern end of the CCC Road trail that you will need to be on. This is a great alternate to the Middle Fork Road. You will climb to about 1300 feet and continue to about 1600 feet or so. Great views out to my left kept me from complaing about my hunger. If you have a map this section is a breeze. If not you may end up going downhill back to the Middle Fork Road!! Once you reach Big Blowout Creek you have 6.5 miles until the Teneriffe parking lot trailhead. Dustin had to be in Seattle by 6pm so Teneriffe and the traverse across to Mount Si was out for today. The Pratt River Trail was definately not made for quick time!! So we just contined a mile or so on the Mount Si road and got to the car around 4pm. Dustin and Iris swore they would never step foot on that trail again but I thought it was great. Solitude, some great crossings, and a lot of laughs. One day we may never be able to do these things. I would highly recommend this for the adventurous type. Just bring a map, look for the ribbons and have patience. The trail is there. For those mileage junkies (yes, you know you are out there) I believe without the Teneriffe to Si silliness we may have covered 35-37 miles. John

The CCC road has been blown quite spectactularly by a debris flow off the denuded upper reaches of the Green-Bessemer ridge. The runout zone, below the road, is some acres in extent. The road is interrupted by walls of debris six or seven feet high, lining a bouldery wash where the road used to be. The site is about a mile downvalley from where the Bessemer road intersects it. The logging and road network high on the ridge that was the cause of all this dates back to the seventies. An object lesson in the long latencies and lingering aftereffects of high-elevation logging and roadbuilding. As the CCC road gets less road-like, it gets nicer to walk.

Wow! This is an awesome trail for a winter hike. No snow on the trail and plenty of greenery to view! The trail is in great shape! The new trail bed is slumping in one place.

Berries! I've never eaten more berries on a hike. We encountered three kinds of huckleberries, rasberries, salmon berries, black caps, and thimble berries. Yum! Except for a few differences, we followed the loop to the top of Green Mtn described at http://midforc.org/. We parked at the Teneriffe trail head and rode our bikes up the CCC Road Trail to a ridge east of Green Mountain. We followed the ridge to the summit, the ridge passes through at least 5 distinct different areas, oldish second growth, old growth, young second growth, a rock field, and high-elevation ridge covered in old growth (at least if I remember clearly it was old-growth). It was very interesting going from the beautiful old growth to the young second growth, the contrast between the two has never been brought home to me so well. Near the top the ridge became very well defined, at some places it was only 10 feet wide. From the peak, we descended north to a logging road that followed the ridge. The ridge was the prettiest part of the trip. The fireweed, fox glove, and pearly everlastings were in full bloom. The clouds blowing over the ridge from the west made the mountainside of stumps mysterious and beautiful. The logging road eventually dead-ended above a large, man-eating boulder field. After descending the boulder field to another logging road below it, we got off route, I only figured we were off route the next day. (We were pretty frazzled and stupidly only consulted the map without the route written on it, from now on all my maps will have the route on them.) Instead of following the logging road to a ridge and descending the ridge, we continued straight on down and through about 600 vertical feet of devils club. Ouch! This was right around sunset. The rest of the hike down the Bessemer road trail then the CCC road trail back to our bikes was uneventful but dark. Good thing we had our headlamps. It took us over 12 hours. I'm not sure how much of the time was spent descending the field of devil's club. Except for devil's club and the hiking on the low elevation roads, we both thoroughly enjoyed all of this hike.