Trip Report
Snoqualmie River (Lower)
Bold Fall foliage, eerie fog banks, and unexpected encounters with large aquatic mammals.
Logan DeGrand
- Sat, Oct 25, 2025
- Snoqualmie River (Lower)
- Packrafting
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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Overnight the gauge went from 800CFS to 2,800CFS; an 3.5X increase. This degree of sudden rise is always concerning for a river rip, but 800 would be a very low level and 2,800CFS was a good level. The current appeared to be about 1-2 mph most of this section. We paddled this 7 miles in 2:47, at an average speed of 2.5 mph, including a short snack break and a couple probes up side sloughs.
There were large wood hazards every so often, right, left, and center river, but none that presented even the remotest of difficulty to avoid.
The weather-cooperated fully for us as it was dry at the put-in and take-out, and rained about an hour on the water when we were perfectly dry inside our dry suits and underneath our wide-brimmed rain hats on. The wind was a non-issue. Much of the way the water was glassy.
There was a pervasive pungent smell of manure, at times very strong, from all the dairy farms. Water was brown and is not recommended to filter and drink. For most of the route, you are never far away from SR 203 along river right so there was the occasional truck noise. If you are looking for a wild river float through remote wilderness, this is not a good choice.
We were blessed with the fall colors in full display, primarily bright yellow Big Leaf Maple and Oak. The river banks are guarded by a very thick wall of blackberry vine guarded most of the way, which provided very few spots along the way to pull over.
As for bird watching, we saw all the usual suspects: the mighty Great Blue Heron, a couple Mallard Duck, a juvenile Bald Eagle, several Belted Kingfisher, and a host of songbirds.
The fauna we encountered was a big surprise - tail-slapping beavers and a Harbor Seal about 2 miles from the take out, who joined us following us downriver for a couple miles, always staying within 50 feet of our group, clearly curious and friendly. The fishermen said they follow the food source - the pink and coho salmon spawning. We saw several zombie salmon a few inches below the surface and at the surface, as well as some corpses along the banks of a beaver pond.
We finished with lunch at Valley House Brewing, conveniently located at the put in. We did not even need to move the cars.
A good day was had by all. This is a great local river route to get some class I upper-body paddling exercise in on a 1/2 day and to commune with the beavers and harbor seals in the Fall.
