I led my second Saturday Snowshoe of the season for the Cascadians on this snowy day to the Cooper River Trail. We snowshoed the 1/2 mile or so along the groomed road through the Salmon la Sac campground to the trailhead and then about 2 miles up the trail. The trail was compact & obvious the entire way with perhaps an inch of new snow on it. It snowed most of the day from low clouds, but the forest was beautiful. We heard a few snowmobiles going up the Cooper River Road across the valley, but only saw two other snowshoers on the trail. I was a little disappointed that the only nice views of the Cooper River were in the first 200 yards or so of the trailhead, but it was a great snowshoe, nonetheless.

Started off the newyear with a snowshow trip on the Cooper River trail. A cold, clear day, with temps in the 20s and intermittent fog. The road up from Rosyln/Ronald was clear of snow but often covered in ice, so going was fairly slow. We were a little confused about where the trail started. Basically, there's a turnaround a the end of the plowed road. Once you hit that, turn around and park at the parallel parking area a couple hundred yards back. If that's full, there's parking on a spur road a little further. Then walk back to the turnaround, and straight through on the groomed path, over a bridge, etc. The groomed path to the summertime Cooper River trailhead was well-packed; would work fine in cross-country skis or just boots as well. The grooming stops at the trailhead proper, but there was a well-trod track from previous snowhshoers to follow. Of course, one good snow and that path could be gone, and the trail wouldn't be super-easy to follow without it. Apart from a few loose patches of snow on sloped places, no major impediments. The trail is mostly in the woods, but you get intermittent views of some lovely mountains in the distance. Seemed like we were climbing more than the 400 feet listed in the guide, but still not too steep or strenuous. We had to turn around after about 3 miles as it was starting to get dark, so we didn't make it to the lake. While this was a longer trip from Seattle than we expected, it was a pleasant hike that I'd like to do again some time with more time.

Flickr: http://bit.ly/cooper-lake One other car was parked near the end of the plowed road when we arrived. Some fresh snowshoe tracks before the bridge but they didn't help much, so I had to start snowshoeing right off the bat. The dogs and I caught up to the two snowshoers at the trailhead about one mile from the parking lot. They worked hard to break trail for us! What I thought was a quick and easy stroll to the lake turned out to be a lot of work plowing through the snow and it took longer than expected. Since we got a late start, we arrived at the lake about an hour before sunset. On the way back I opted for the service road even though it was a mile longer, but it shaved off 1.5 hours from the trip. It looked like the two lady snowshoers we past and the dogs and I were the first ones on this trail since the area got hit with about two feet of fresh snow. So unless there had been more snowfall since we were there, our tracks should still be visible and hopefully could help with trail breaking.

I led my 4th Saturday Snowshoe of the season for the Cascadians today to the Cooper River Trail, a new destination for me. At least that was the plan. As we started out from the road by the old guard station we were a little ways behind a group of 8 or so Seattle Mountaineers. When we got to the trailhead at the end of the campground, assuming they were also going up the Cooper River Trail, we just followed their track, but after 15 min or so when we kept heading north rather than curving west along the river I began to suspect that we were generally following the Waptus River Trail rather than the Cooper River Trail. Eventually I caught up to them & they confirmed that we were not on the Cooper River Trail. They were just out for exercise & to avoid avalanches. As the snow was deep (the Cle Elum paper said they had received half of their total winter snowfall in the past week) and they were breaking a very nice trail, we decided to follow them rather that backtrack & break our own trail. About noon we came to a small, open knoll on the hillside and stopped for lunch. After an hour or so we returned the way we came. Back near the river we found where some others behind us had started following our tracks, then realized the mistake & headed up the river. Next time I'll know. We went over to look at the river, which was beautiful, then walked through the campground back to the car. The day was supposed to be cloudy with a 50% chance of precip, but it just got nicer & nicer and was mostly sunny by the time we were back to the Cle Elum River bridge. Though we didn't end up going where I had planned & never knew exactly where we were or where we were going, we still had a nice walk through the forest without having to break trail. Under the circumstances, what more could we ask for.

The road up to Salmon La Sac still had a sheen of thin ice the last few miles from the camp ground around 9:30 am, but just taking it slow was just what was needed to keep from sliding. There was a lot of snowmobile activity at the end of the road but they broke off to the right and the snowshoe trail was just our hiking group. The trail was a bit difficult to find at times but we had route finders. There were a few obstacles-a large fallen tree with ice on it and a couple streams that were shallow enough to wade through. Our turn around, and lunch, was just north of Cooper Lake. Overall there was about two and a half to three feet of snow. Enjoy views of the river along the route and snow formations.