Cooper River Snowshoe

We saw a herd of elk crossing the road past Roslyn on our way to Salmon La Sac to hike to Cooper Lake along the Cooper River Trail.
The road is now closed about a mile before the Salmon La Sac Campground and a SnoPark Pass is needed to park along the road. This made our hike 10 miles round trip with an overall elevation gain of about 1,100 ft.






This map shows the Salmon La Sac Groomed Trail System. Red for snowmobiles and blue for groomed ski trails. The Cooper River Trail is not groomed, but the 1 mile from the SnoPark area to the trailhead is groomed. We made sure we stayed off the groomed ski tracks.
The first 1/4 mile of our route was shared with snowmobiles and the road at Cooper Lake is also open to snowmobiles. We did meet a couple at Cooper Lake who had snowshoed up the road along the snowmobile tracks.

Closed road from the Salmon La Sac SnoPark

View of the Cle Elum River upstream from the bridge

Views of the Cle Elum River downstream from the bridge.

View of Cooper River about 0.1 mile from the Cooper River trailhead (at Salmon La Sac Campground)

Was wonderful to see the sun and some blue skies today.

The snow was deep enough that we put on our snowshoes about 1 mile up the official trail. However, there were several areas where streams melted the snow across the trail.

After 2 miles, we did not see anymore tracks in the snow and we began to break trail in heavy wet snow.

The sunlight made the lichen on the trees appear golden.

Cooper River further upstream.

View from the road bridge just below Cooper Lake, lovely reflection here on the Cooper River.

View from the same bridge looking downstream.

View at Cooper Lake near the outlet. This was a beautiful spot for our lunch break.

View across the Cooper River at the outlet.
















Looking downstream towards the bridge.

Last view at Cooper Lake before returning to the trail.

Couple of views of the Cooper River as we snowshoed back to the trailhead.

A beautiful winter snowshoe.

Cooper River Trail

We drove up to the Salmon La Sac Campground on Road 111 to hike the Cooper River Trail up to Cooper Lake. We hiked on the trail by the lake through the campground up to the boat ramp, about 8+ miles round trip with an overall elevation gain of 800 ft.
There was a bit of fresh snow from last night.

The trail follows along the Cooper River being close to the river at some places and a bit away from the river at others.

Peek-a-boo view of a distant peak.

We enjoyed the morning light

some views from along the river

Lovely sunlight on the trees

3 miles from the trailhead we reached the road at Cooper Lake, first we walked over the the bridge over the river.

view up river toward Cooper Lake from the bridge

view down river from the bridge

we then hiked on the trail that goes along Cooper Lake up the the campground.
view across the lake

we saw some snow geese taking flight from the lake

a few more lakeside photos along the trail