Cooper River Hike

Sammy at the beginning of our hike, with his new Batman water bottle

Last Saturday we drove over Snoqualmie Pass to try out some hiking on the East Side. We have been wanting to hike to Hyas Lake for several weeks, since we read an entry for the hike in Best Hikes with Kids: Western Washington and the Cascades. However, I wish that we had read this post before we left, since we found the last dirt road to be nearly impassable in our little car! Boo! After driving on the road for 1/2 mile, we gave up, turned around and went to the nearby Salmon la Sac trailhead instead.

This trailhead (which requires you to purchase a $5 Northwest Forest Pass at the parking lot) leads to the Cooper River Trail and Cooper Lake. We walked about 3/4 of this trail, but turned back before making it to Cooper Lake. Instead, since the trail starts along the river, we decided to walk until the trail met up with the river again. Most of the trail goes alongside the river path, but just high enough and far enough back in the trees that you can only hear the river from the trail. The trail has some gentle up and down slopes, and it is really dusty. The dusty trail and occasional sections of brush growth reminded me more of Utah than the trails I'm used to seeing on the west side of the pass.

This is the swimming area near the Salmon la Sac trailhead. A lot of people were swimming and hanging out here; I assume many were staying at the Salmon la Sac campground.

We saw lots of these trees that were covered with coarse, dry moss. We joked with Sam that it looked like the trees had long beads.

Sam was so happy when we saw the river again and got to stop hiking! He liked dipping his feet in the clear water.

The boys waded in the river, wearing their matching Star Wars shirts

 

This was our view on the way back. The river is down at the bottom of this gorge. It was really interesting to look across the abyss and see a relatively flat surface, at our relative height, on top of the opposite cliff.

This was a fun hike, despite that Sam was quite grumpy and we didn't have enough water to drink. I think next time we do this hike, I'd like to wait until Sam is older so we can go all the way down the trail to Cooper Lake. The trail is about eight miles round trip (to the lake and back), and we probably hiked about six miles round trip on our excursion.