Zach and I got up early Saturday morning and were in the truck, on our way, well before sunrise. The gloomy gray light deep inside the Cascade Mountains found us on the dirt road, excited about our coming adventure. Five miles up the Middle Fork Road we drove into a rain shower as the Pratt Valley passed to our right. The cold waters of the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River separated us from our destination. Those hundred wet yards would take four miles of road and another four miles of tough trail to cross.

We parked at the Middle Fork trailhead in the rain and started hiking across the Wilderness Gateway bridge. We were prepared for the weather with rain gear, three pairs of socks each, clothes in dry bags, and two really big blue tarps. It only takes a few trail miles in a drenching rain for a blue tarp to look an awfully lot like a castle.

The hike into the Pratt went much better than I expected. Any time we lost the tread, we simply backtracked a few hundred yards and looked for old trail tread, pink ribbons in the bushes, or a cut blaze on a tree. We struggled to get across the Rainy Creek delta, then it took just two hours to reach the Pratt Valley proper. By eleven o’clock we had set up “Big Trees Camp” and the sun came out. The sub-peaks of Russian Butte gleamed with a crown of fresh snow. Life was good and the weather was right on queue.

“Big Trees Camp” was not some wishful name I picked for good luck. There was a sign along the trail that said “Big Trees” with an arrow pointing to the right. The trail went to the left to meet the “big switchback”.

The Pratt had been logged using a temporary railroad much like the rest of the Middle Fork Valley and Tiger Mountain. The tracks had come up from the Middle Fork along the south of the valley, then skirted the base of Russian Butte, and performed a huge switchback crossing the Pratt on a trestle to turn back West up the hill. Steep terrain forced a dead-end switchback before the logging trains pulled by the North Bend Timber Company’s #2 Shay could grind back up the valley towards Thompson Creek. Our trail met the grade at the end of the dead-end “big switchback”.

The Big Trees sign was disappointing. Pictures on the web showed a neat, 1960’s era brown, wood sign with painted yellow letters and border hanging on a second growth tree. A yellow arrow (on the right of this non-US Forest Service-approved sign) pointed to the right at an informal trail leading down the grade into the forested distance, while a hand-scratched modification said “Main Trail” and pointed to the left. The forest jungle’s relentless destruction of everything man-made had taken an especially hard toll since the picture I saw on the web was taken, the few remaining pieces of the sign lay on the ground at the base of the tree. A previous hiker had placed the bits, as best as possible, together to form the old sign. A portent for the trip, things were not to go as I carefully planned.

The sun disappeared and it started to rain again. Hard!




In my senior year of high school I shared a locker with a long-time friend, Dave Mock. Dave was a drummer, a dreamer, and a huge fan of anything English. The Queen’s portrait hung in our locker where a poster of Farah Fawcett in a red swimsuit belonged. Dave truly believed he was a displaced citizen of The Empire. I had no idea at the time how key Dave would be in revealing the bridge between the satisfaction of saving a life and the frustration of making bagels for a living.

After college Dave moved to England, became a shoe salesman, married an English girl and settled into a career. A few years later God asked him to become an Anglican minister and he did. Dave knew when to follow a calling. I didn’t see him for fifteen years.

In 2005 I was on a business trip to the middle of England, near Manchester, where Dave was living. I emailed him and arranged to meet. He picked me up at the train station in his tiny British compact car, wearing a dark coat and his vicar’s collar.

We spent the afternoon at his house, a large brick home complete with kids and a book-strewn office. In the evening we walked to a local pub. After a nasty-tasting, warm beer we headed out to a second pub. Dave was taking me to three pubs that night, something he did on a regular basis.

“Brad”, Dave started, “I have two church buildings in my parish. Not many years ago these supported two parishes and filled two church sanctuaries on Sunday mornings. Now I can’t even fill one. On Sunday we meet in the little chapel, a few old people who will soon be gone, while the main sanctuary sits empty. England has the lowest church attendance in Europe.”

I started to ask a question as we walked along the dark, narrow street. Dave observed that I didn’t need to talk so loudly. It’s an American trait. Good lesson. I remember it even today.

“During the day, I check the church buildings because we are frequently vandalized. Kids steal the roof tiles; we have to edge the roof with barbed wire. This is frustrating, until you realize a basic lesson.”

Someone stealing your roof tiles is pretty frustrating no matter what. I hardly had the patience for this and was becoming convinced Reverend Mock had simply found a cushy job requiring little to no effort, justifying his pub-walks as work with no expectations from his near-death parish. “What’s the lesson?” I asked a little quieter.