Cooper River sign
The Cooper River trail is located near Salmon la Sac in eastern Washington. This is about 105 miles from home for us or almost a two-hour drive. The day started out with some excitement as just before we reached the turn off for the trailhead a gray wolf darted across the roadway in front of the car. At first, we thought he might be a coyote, there are plenty of those around even in the city, but this was too big and well fed plus the wrong color. When we got home and checked the local wolf pack locations, we saw that there is a wolf pack in the Teanaway, close enough to where we were to make us more certain it had been a wolf.
River views from the trail
A Forest Service Pass is required for this hike. The Cooper River trail follows along the river for the first section and then heads up into a nice mixed forest. There are mostly Douglas fir, Ponderosa pine, some cedar, vine maples, and alder with open spaces unlike the western side forests that are more densely treed and have more underbrush. There was one Yew tree, not common, growing alongside the trail. The Cooper River trail is not in, but right outside, of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area.
This forest has never been logged and has nice big trees. The trail surface starts out as dirt and rocks but once in the forest it becomes mostly packed earth and needles.
In one place a stream runs through 3 trees and creates a small pool that requires fording. This is high water spring runoff season, even so, the water did not go over the top of our boots and it was possible to wade across without mishaps. We saw several different wildflowers along the trail. Near the ford we met a family of 4 with a dog coming up behind us. It was a little after noon, and these were the first people we had encountered so far. We met a few others on the return trip to the parking area.
Trillium in new bloom
The Trillium turns a gorgeous shade of purple as the bloom is dying back
The first Canadian Dogwood or Bunchberry this year
A surprise, Camas!
Another surprise, Candystick! Just popping up out of the ground
Serviceberry or Saskatoon
Surprise #3, an albino currant. Our botanist friend tells us albino plants are not common but not rare either.
Orange Indian Paintbrush
Fairybells
As with the Greenwater Lakes trail the week before, there were signs warning of cougar sightings and instructions of what to do if a cougar was encountered on the trail. Bear warnings are common at many trails. These signs always cause me some concern but Bob assures me that the animals are always out there but we don’t see them.
There are many ups and downs on the trail. Bob factored those in to arrive at an elevation gain of 600 ft. Once again, we used the clock as well as a destination, agreeing to stop for a snack or mini lunch at 1 pm even if we didn’t reach the reported river view. Then we could reassess whether to forge ahead to Cooper Lake, another ¾ mile ahead, or turn back. With the time approaching 1 pm we stopped at the view point and ate half our lunch, then decided not to try reaching the lake and started back. The reported view spot turned out to have a gorgeous view of the roaring river. The round trip was 5 miles.
On the return trip we heard a loud noise, like the cracking of a dry branch, and turned to each other and said "What was that?" Then I saw it and told Bob to look up at the hill. A large lumpy shape on the hillside about 100 yds away. A bear, a very large cinnamon brown bear!! He looked to be between 200 and 300 pounds. He turned and stared right at me. Once again not enough time to get the camera set up and take a picture, and he was too close for comfort to even want to try. Fortunately, he did not like the looks of us either and ambled up the hill at a pretty fast clip. Exciting to say the least. We told hikers coming up that there was a bear in the area and we put note on the trailhead sign with the date and location so others could be aware that one had been seen close to the trail.
A 5 mile RT with 600 ft elevation gain
Count for the day: 13 people, 2 dogs
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