Three snowshoers and two dogs for this trip, starting at about 10am. The road is closed around Cayuse Horse Camp, and be warned - you need a sno-parks permit to park on the side of the road. It was about a mile from there to the actual trail head. All the snowmobiles seemed to veer right and head up on a trail to a different lake, and we never saw one on our trail. 

There are cougar warning signs posted, we wore bells and had no problems. The trail is clear for about the first two miles, with occasional side-steps or variably graceful leaps over creeks. We broke trail for another half mile or so before stopping for lunch and then heading back. 

Only saw two other groups, a really nice break from some of the heavier populated trails. This isn’t the trail you use if you want gorgeous mountain views, but it was beautiful and peaceful and made for a great day in the snow. 

Didn't reach the parking lot, instead we parked after the Salmon La Sac bridge and parked at a flat, less-snowy pull-out. A 0.5 mile walk had us at the trailhead sign.  

Didn't use snowshoes til we were trail-adjacent nearer the river banks and upper slopes.

Its gorgeous. Absolutely stunning.

You have to park about 100yards in front of the old Salmon La Sac Guard station. Snow was very firm and well packed so I just used spikes. I didn’t sink more than an inch or two, unless I went off trail. It snowed the whole time, was so peaceful and beautiful! You only get some views of the river at the beginning, but I didn’t finish the entire thing, turned around about 3miles in.

We discovered an unnamed, unmarked, untrailed waterfall on the Cooper River, which drains out of Cooper Lake. 

This is a very hard scramble to figure out. Message me if you want details.  This is very challenging. 

We parked as close to Salmon La Sac campground as possible and followed the Cooper River trail 1311 - and used Google earth to find the waterfall. 

It was over 7 miles,  breaking a deep snow trail the entire way - took 3 hours one way!  See my Instagram for more pics. 

We parked near the Salmon La Sac Rd road's end turnaround and put on our snowshoes at the split for Cle Elum Valley Rd (NF-4330) taking the left over the Cle Elum River bridge then past the Salmon La Sac campground to the Cooper River trail.  Thin crust over powder makes for very slow going. We postholed approximating the Cooper River Trail only about a third of the way to Cooper Lake taking 2 hours, before stopping for lunch, turning around and making faster progress back along our earlier track.  GAIA app was invaluable as always.

The After Hike beer stop was Bellevue Brewery. :-)