A friend and I did a loop starting at the De Roux trailhead, hitting Koppen Mountain, Gallagher Head Lake, and Esmeralda Basin. Writing a trip report as we found far more snow than we were expecting.
De Roux trailhead to Koppen Mountain trail: some trees down but none hard to cross. Clear of snow until the last few switchbacks.
Koppen Mountain trail to the summit: mostly snow covered but with some bare patches. A few snow areas were a bit steep for my comfort zone, so I was happy to have a friend kicking steps ahead of me on the way up and spikes on the way down.
Middle Fork Teanaway trail + Elsnor Mine trail: we had a quick, lovely descent on the dry switchbacks of the De Roux Spur Trail before running into snow again. This surprised us. We were in theory turning right onto the Middle Fork Teanaway trail but did not see much trail on the way up to the saddle to the Elsnor Mine trail. After grinding up to the saddle, we had about 40 feet of clear trail before finding more snow. Thankfully the grade made for easy and not scary snow travel so we just headed downhill towards the general direction of the Boulder De Roux trail.
Boulder De Roux trail to Esmeralda Basin to trailhead: Boulder De Roux trail had some bare patches but was mostly snow covered again. Eventually we made it to Gallagher Head Lake which was mostly iced over still. The Fortune Creek jeep trail was entirely snow covered until the last ~quarter to half mile before the junction with the Esmeralda Basin trail. We ran into two off road vehicles who had given up trying to get to Gallagher Head Lake. I think they were surprised to see us and were curious as to where we were coming from. The first half of the Esmeralda Basin trail was snow free. The second half was mixed snow/bare patches. We made it to the top and ran into a group of backpackers who were also very curious as to where we were coming from. The first mile or so of the descent was mostly snow covered but just patchy after that. Avalanche debris at a couple points but easy to navigate through. We decided to just take the road back to the De Roux trailhead to make up time and it felt great to open up the legs a bit finally.
It was a beautiful ~17 mile day but took much longer than expected since at least half the route was snow covered. Under current conditions, I would recommend traveling with someone who knows the area well + GPS and of course take care of water running under snow, creek crossings, snow bridges, etc.
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