Cooper River Snowshoe — Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022

Had high aspirations of going to Cooper River snowshoe trail today … chose a lower elevation spot due to considerable avalanche risk as well as the cold and wind …
fatigue from trail breaking and super cold temps (for me!) had me turn back just after I actually got to the Cooper river TH, but a super pretty location nonetheless!

Started around 11:00 at Salmon la sac sno park. Correct if I’m wrong here, but it looks like you could park 0.25 miles closer to the salmon la sac GC still within sno park area. Signs say “Begin parking here” and a Sno Park sign on the road about 0.25 miles closer than where the usual sno park is …. I parked on sls road near the snow park along w/ 2-3 snowmobile trucks. . No need for high clearance at this time, just traction

0.5-0.75 along sls road to start of unplowed area. It’s still very packed snow at that point too - snowmobiles doing the work based on the tracks. Then the SLS CG branch separates and it was breaking trail from there on out … prob 12” of fresh stuff. I think I was overdressed bc I was sweating and taking breaks more often than usual … hard work.
Anyway - lots of quiet, sunny and filtered light into a snowy forest. The cle elum and cooper rivers were gorgeous technicolor pastel light blue w pillowy snowy rocks on the banks …
Finally made it to SLS TH proper and was already pretty tired… made it another 0.5 miles along Cooper river trail (totally covered - making trail on the most likely path- some evidence of prior snowshoers I would guess)
I turned back and did a loop around SLS CG and made my way back to the road on a side spur …
Spent some time back at the Cle Elum river to take pictures and enjoy the scenery on a sweet little snow covered bench.
Overall very picturesque, cold as … really cold stuff
Gotta lower my expectations when it’s so cold and deep I guess!
Prob ~4 miles, minimal elevation