July 4th Middlefork Adventures

As a fisherman in the Snoqualmie Valley, I am fortunate enough to go to church with local entreprenuer and outdoorsman Bryan Finney, who has been scouting out the three river forks for twenty years or more. Last weekend he called me up and invited me to visit an absolutely incredible slough in the Middlefork valley. I said "sure!" and before too long we were stomping down a fisherman's trail to the slough.

Bryan Finney with a slough cutthroat

The Slough doesn't show up on maps which is crazy because its absolutely gigantic; it just goes on and on and on. We fished the long S-shape for three hours and still didn't cover it all. We caught a mix of largemouth bass and trout. Here's a picture of me after I lost the largest cutt of the day, which was perhaps 13".

The One the Got Away

At some point, Bryan mentioned that the river has a neat little run behind the slough.

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So the next day, Casey and went back there. We walked past the slough and tried to find the river. We wandered around the hot, bug-infested jungle for 45 minutes. We even bumped into another dad and his girls who were looking for the same river access! Finally, Casey and I followed an old creekbed and found the run that Bryan was talking about.

As I was setting up to fish, Casey yelled "Ewwww! Dad, there's a snake here with a dead fish!" I came around the rock, took the following video. Note, the sculpin isn't dead: if you look closely you can see it gulping air.

Normally snakes swallow things head first -- that way fins and limbs can fold back and be swallowed whole. This juvenile snake hasn't learned that lesson yet I guess. He eventually had to spit out the fish (now dead).

Photo by Casey

In the end, the snake was a better fisherman than I; I caught nothing. Good looking water though.

Middlefork Campground

I haven't been camping in over ten years. As part of my master plan to become an alpine lake ninja I have to get back into it. So Thursday night Casey and I started the long holiday weekend by driving 45 minutes to beautiful the new Middlefork campground on the Middle fork of the Snoqualmie River.

To Casey's delight, the camp host, Pete, let us drive the camp's golf cart around the camp. Then Casey and I went to explore parts of the nearby Taylor River, which had, this winter, washed out the bridge. In case you were wondering if it was still possible to get around the washout, well, look at the picture.

Then we walked around the camp to find the old-timey water pump. We filled a bucket for camp use. There's something very quaint about pumping your own water.

Weinies and Cup'Noodles make for good Bachelor food for camping. I'm not a cook by any stretch but I thoroughly enjoyed getting us fed that night. Especially using the new $50 camp pot set that Vlad recommended (GSI Dualist).

We slept very well, even though our neighbors had told us that last year everyone had been chased out there by a hungry, aggressive bear. Casey slept in his underwear. In the morning I got up and made myself coffee. Casey wouldn't eat the oatmeal I bought so he had the last weinie for breakfast. In the picture you can see the AMAZINGLY TINY camp stove, which is in the process of boiling the water when this picture was taken.

The campground was exactly what we needed for our maiden camping voyage. We had a great time and I, for one, can't wait to go camping again! Next time will probably be Mirror Lake or some other hike-to-camp option.