This is a beautiful trail with rolling elevation gain that winds its way through heavy forest as it follows the Cooper River. But it is tough in deep snow!

There was a trail broken about halfway to Cooper Lake on Wednesday, and I broke trail the rest of the way to the lake. It started snowing Wednesday night/Thursday morning so there are probably several inches over my footprints by now.

Snow was deep, I was in up to my thigh at times even with snowshoes. Use caution for the several blowdowns across the trail on the western portion. There are several inches of snow covering them and also creating hidden, tree well-like snow cavities. So do some probing with a trekking pole before trying to do negotiate these. The trail itself was easy to follow despite the snow depth. There was only one part where I got off trail in the dark (I had a headlamp of course) but I found it again. Between the river to the south and Polallie Ridge to the north it is hard to get too much off track.

I planned to camp at Owhi CG, just off the Cooper River Road, but I couldn't find it. If there was a sign I missed it. So I just made camp in the parking lot.

If you belong to the WH&C or PNWOW FB groups you can read the gory details of how this trip went sideways for me the second day. But that was my fault, not the trail's. :)

I encountered the tree in the photo as I was exhausted from breaking trail. I think we each understood the other perfectly at that point. LOL

With the forecast for stormy weather moving down from the north we decided to try the Salmon La Sac area, hoping the rain and snow would hold off.  Instead we found blue skies, crisp temperatures and a snow covered trail.  The snow varied in depth from about 6 inches in the parking lot to 12 inches at the lake.  We didn't actually use our snowshoes because there was no real prospect to post-hole, but some others did, and with more snow in the forecast, snowshoes will soon be necessary.  

The road had been cleared and was mostly bare all the way to the sno-park lot, but not beyond.  The road beyond there was snow covered and borderline passable with high clearance.  We bypassed the sno-park lot, and continued approximately 1/2 mile to the summer trailhead parking.  The bathroom there was open, but the sign on the door stated that it is no longer being maintained for the winter season.  Still, it was pretty clean inside.  Be aware that there is a road on the opposite side of the river that goes to the lake.  For now, there were tracks of high clearance vehicles on the road where the trail crosses it near the lake.  Soon it will be snowmobile tracks.  The good news is that they pretty much stick to the roads which leaves the trail for hikers and snowshoers.  Not a bad compromise.

The snow covered the ground and trail, but there were still some of the lower bushes exposed.  The trail leaves the parking area and proceeds along the river, close at first and then further away and higher up.  It does return to the riverside further up the trail and close to the lake. Across the river from us (to the south) there are the slopes of Red Mountain and later No Name Ridge that blocked the low winter sun except during the middle of the day, but when it did get a little above the ridges, it warmed the trail a bit and lit the trees and icy branches of the shrubs.  We enjoyed it while it lasted.

The trail was easy to follow, with only some minor blowdowns to step over at first, but a little before the 2 mile point we encountered a large blowdown that blocked the trail.  With brush to the uphill (root) side and a ravine to the downhill, we had to climb under one tree and over the second tree...not an easy task as seen in the picture below.  Perhaps the snow will fill in around it, making a bypass possible.  At this point it was enough of a deterrent that only a few sets of footprints were left on the trail beyond that point.  There were another couple of large-ish blowdowns further on, with one almost parallel to the trail, requiring us to follow along one side of the log and then climb over the log and continue down the other side. 

We continued on to the lake where we paused and enjoyed the views of the ridges on the opposite side and to the mountains across the length of the lake to the northwest.  A cold breeze coming off the frozen lake encouraged us to pull out extra layers while we ate lunch and admired the views.  We headed back out at about 3:00, which was late enough that we had to finish the trip by headlamp.

Hiked with wife and GoodKarma from Salmon la Sac trailhead all the way to the lake, making a side trip up the road to the driveway into the day use area by Cooper Lake.

People/Parking:
Arriving to the Salmon la Sac trailhead, snow was on the road past Roslyn and piled high once we crossed the river near the sno-park. Would almost suggest high clearance only, but I don't think our vehicle would be considered that and we did make it after all. Still, lots of snow. Parking around 10:30 there were a handful of other cars parked, but we saw very few people out on the trail. Maybe 3 other parties all day.

Toilets:
There was an open vault toilet at the trailhead. Toilets at Cooper Lake were locked for the season.

Trail:
We considered taking snowshoes but the trail looked pretty packed down. In loose snow we were stomping up to our knees, but on the packed trail we were very comfortable in micro spikes. We ended up doing the whole trail this way, having left our snowshoes in the car.

Apart from the obvious snow which covered everything 100 percent, the trail was mostly clear. There were a couple of blow downs that confused things, but mainly one big one about halfway to the lake road that truly obstructed the path. In reality it was two big trees blown down side by side, one to go under and one to clamber over but it's about 4 feet tall from where you stand. Returning, we clambered up and around the end of this "climb over" tree, which resulted in a slightly tougher "squeeze under" of the other tree but overall was easier I thought.

Once we reached the lake road we found the signed trail continuing on to the lake shore was untrodden since the snow had arrived and we would have had to stomp through it without our snowshoes. We opted instead to follow the road up the hill to where it enters the day use parking lot, bending back to the left. When returning we thought we would follow to the end of the parking lot, then realized it was a dead end. Rather than retrace all our steps back to the entrance of the parking lot, we opted to tromp through the snow up the embankment to the road ("I can see it! It's right there!"). This was an extra little bonus workout, but perhaps saved us a little bit of time.

Flora:
It was a really pretty, diverse forest including some west slope and some east slope features. The understory was mostly at the end of its fall phase, with oranges reaching brown but still popping brilliantly in contrast with the snow. Across the valley we could see what we thought might be the odd western larch shining yellow against the green forested hillside, though maybe it was a little late for them and this was something else. 

Fauna:
In the first mile, an owl swooped across the trail about 20 yards in front of me, but disappeared into the canopy within seconds. Apart from this, our greatest interaction with animalia was with squeaking squirrels in the trees above us, and some pretty birds every now and then.

Views:
The river is nearby but not immediately present through much of the trail. It is true that the first step-off to view the river right after the start of the hike affords very good views, but there are some other opportunities farther upriver, closer to where you meet the lake road. It was flowing well and churning over rocks creating dramatic rapids this day. The lake, in contrast, was fully snow covered. We stayed off it, as you could see it was thin near the shore. However it was a very pretty sight.

Clouds were starting to roll in on us at the lake, bringing snow with them and cutting down our waning light in addition to our views. Before they did though we got some good looks at the surrounding dramatic peaks beyond Cooper Lake. Would love to come back and explore further.

Reminder:
It got dark on us about halfway back to the trailhead and we finished out the hike by headlamp, which was pretty cool in its own way, if not ideal! Always remember your backup illumination!

Decided to do a river snowshoe since avalanche danger was high. We drove to where 903 is not plowed and started our snowshoe there. We ended up using gaia to make it to Cooper River TH. It is about 2 miles from parking lot. We snowshed a bit along the river, but the snow was high on the banks and no boot pack to follow. Had lunch along the river and returned. On the way back we checked out the Salmon la Sac campground, which was very snowy. We needed snowshoes the whole time. The snow was soft and heavy at the same time, a work out with every step. When we were almost at the car, we saw a grooming machine tend to the pass. The hike should be much easier after the grooming.

The temporary Sno-Park closure mentioned on the WTA main description of this hike is no longer in effect.  The road and Sno-Park lot are clear of any obstructions and are fully usable.  The snow on the trails was quite firm and often had a fair amount  of small forest litter (needles, lichen, twigs, etc.) suggesting that there'd been plenty of wind but not much snow for some time.

I snowshoed with a friend from the parking lot up the trail through forest, then  through the Salmon la Sac Horse Camp, and followed the trail to the Salmon la Sac Campground.  We sat on the edge of the campground overlooking the river to eat lunch and enjoy the sunshine.  We snowshoed a total of about 5 miles  round trip.

We saw only 2 other parties on the trail and each was XC skiing with their dogs.  This is a pleasant and easy snowshoe or XC ski outing.