The Brothers – C2C attempt - 06/17/2024

No bug

Trail runners for the lower part, ice axe/crampons for the upper snowed part

Start: 5:15am End: 6:45pm (that was a long day for me)

Weather: sunny in the morning, turning overcast to rain towards the end.

Trail to/from Lena lake: couple of wag bags on the trail, people cutting switch-backs. Other than that, nothing to report.

Lena creek crossing:

the rope is gone, but the crossing was easy with water knee deep on the way in and back. There wasn’t much current, but that can change after heavy rain. Remember to unbuckle your backpack, face upstream, use poles and ensure firm footing before moving forward.

Valley of the Silent men to Base Camp:

For me, this is really the most beautiful part of this hike. The forest has so many beautiful trees (big, small, old, young, nursing, twisted, crooked, broken,…), with some random huge mossy boulders here and there, and the water is so clear…This valley is like in a quiet lushy fairy world.

The trail up to the base camp crosses the stream a few times. I had to turn back a couple of times, but never lost more than a couple min before I could find one of the trails. Right now, the trails is/are easier to follow than what I’ve seen reported in the past couple years. If you don’t see any obvious trail within 20yards, just turn around. Some parts were a bit overgrown and I got really wet, not because of the rain, but because of the vegetation. Remember to bring spare dry socks, pants, underwear, Tshirt.

Base camp to burned area:

I don’t remember much about this part. Trail was easy to follow and got steeper once I reached the burned area, but nothing too crazy.  Some parts were carpeted with some cute little white/purple flowers. That was really beautiful in the morning sun. Once out of the wood, I was mostly in or following the stream (dried) to the gully that leads to the summit. I was feeling good, however, I could see the clouds closing in and engulfing the mountains above me. Not a good sign.

Rock to Summit:

After the burned area, I walked around a couple of snow patches trying to keep my feet dry(ish) and followed the base of the rock wall towards the right. A bit of scrambling on rock and between a few trees got me to the base of the last gully (~5500ft, Hour Glass?) at around 11am. This is where I had to transition from trail runners to boots/ice axe. A climber coming down told me the snow was too soft (it was) and that I should be fine with just micro spikes. But she was playing in a different league and wasn’t wearing any kind of traction besides here climbing boots.  I should have listen to my guts and put the crampons on. If not for safety, at least for traction.  I pushed my way up to 6480ft (361ft shy of the summit according to my GPS). The clouds were settling in for good, I couldn’t see more than 100ft and it even started to snow. I was alone, slightly exhausted, on a ~40deg slope, in the cloud. I felt like going further would only be pushing my luck (and potentially my bad luck at the same time). Still, I was happy I managed to get that far up this mountain, and I decided this was a good turn around point.

The way back to the trailhead is kind of a blur. I had to focus a lot on my footing going downhill. I was getting cold due to sweat, rain, cold temperature. My knee started to hurt. It took me a lot longer than I anticipated (it’s not the first time I underestimate the way down and I need to learn from this mistake). I made it back to the car at 6:45pm. Exhausted, but happy. This was my 3^rd attempt at the Brothers. Not the last.

We had the perfect weather window for a Brothers climb June 12/13. Plenty of trip reports describe the approach to climber's camp, so I'll just comment on the current route conditions on the upper mountain.

The first navigational challenge folks tend to mention above climber's camp is the burn - we found a very clear bootpath here that goes basically up the middle (between recent tracks on PeakBagger). This was easy to follow even in the dark. On the return we decided to try following one of our tracks from a previous attempt to avoid descending some loose dirt sections. This was a mistake that resulted in lots of bushwacking! Just take the obvious trail back down.

Initial snow above the burn is intermittent and rotten in places - we mostly opted for the summer path, which is on the left side of the gully and easy to follow. The scramble up to Lunch Rock is mostly snow free, as is the path that cuts around east to skirt the entrance to the Hourglass. Once in the upper gully system, the route transitions onto snow until the final summit push. The snow level is getting low, so it was very steep most of the way. There are also two sections that travel between cliffs with moats on either side - these will probably be very difficult or impossible to pass very soon (one was only four feet wide).

Once you attain the ridge the scramble to the summit is snow free.

Overall there was much less snow than we expected (recent unseasonal snowstorms fooled us into thinking there'd be more). We got an early start out of camp (2am) to avoid what we thought would be endless mushy slogging on the return, but all that got us was very firm snow on the descent. Given the steepness, open moats, and exposed rocks we ended up downclimbing most of the upper gully, which was quite the chore.

Sunday’s sunny, warm forecast prompted us to pivot plans from Mt. Hood to The Brothers as a training climb for a Rainier attempt. I had snowshoed up to Panorama Point on Rainier Saturday morning and only packed my cold weather gear for the weekend’s dual trips, making Sunday a true “heavy pack haul” train for me. After sleeping at the TH, I woke up at 3am, strapped on a good 35lbs to my back and waited at the to the TH to meet my partners. After stargazing for 20 minutes or so, I realized it was 3am ET not PT and foolishly went back to sleep for a few hours. At least I got to see a shooting star out of the time-zone blunder.

We started in earnest at 3:45am PT and quickly ascended the switchbacks and well-maintained trail, marching in the glow of our headlamps to lower Lena Lake. The only other C2C hiker we came across all day, ran past us here, warning of a thunderstorm in the forecast. We were unsure if his hastiness was due to being a trail runner or out of genuine weather fear, but either way he was running towards The Brothers and not back out to lower elevations. Near the lake there is a declining log crossing with a fixed line to use for stabilization, which looked a lot harder than it was to cross securely. After passing the lake (5am) there are quite a few blowdowns and some stretches of unkept trail to navigate through (minor bushwhacking). Keeping sense of our bearing here helped, (about 84 > 21-1 deg. mag.) as well as sticking parallel to the dry creek bed. We added a few rocks to help one of us hop one of the East Fork Lena Creek crossings and avoid getting their boots wet (this didn’t affect the flow of the creek). Waterproof boots would work here or there is a larger log you can cross alternatively (can’t recall if upstream or down from the trail’s creek crossing). Eventually we made it to The Brothers Base Camp, where we turned, bearing towards the multiple gully paths.

We gratefully followed the tracks of Hadi Asgharimoghaddam (from Peakbagger) up through the burn section, and up the west gully (3^rd gully from the Base Camp turn that bears north, up to the summit). Here we started hitting snow that is on its way out at this time of year but was well packed in and less mushy/slick then I had expected for a warmer day. We had the choice early on of booting up this snow or scrambling (mostly class 2) up parallel rock paths. After choosing a mix of both, we passed by the second to last water source, before dawning crampons and taking out our ice axes for traction/stability. After climbing a stretch of good snow up part of the gully, we took off traction to climb up more rock. Here we hit the last water source (besides melting the diminishing snow) where some of us filled up bladders before the push to the summit. I stashed my heavy pack, opting for a foldable mini pack here, but quickly returned to pack my crampons and axe on the recommendation of a down climber who informed us there is more stretches of snow to climb which takes you right up to the summit. After a short rock scramble, we hit this snow patch, which is shaped like an hourglass (snow tapers down towards the middle section, being surrounded by rock outcrops). We climbed up what we measured as a 48 degree slope at it’s steepest, using crampons (good practice for side stepping/front pointing/duck walking) and using the ice axe (self-belay step practice). One may feel secure enough just booting up, kicking steps, and using their poles but different snow conditions may exist here where a fall would be hard to arrest and runs out to rocks. Towards the top of this final section of snow the boot pack branches off climbers left and right. We chose left on the recommendation of a down climber and quickly stashed our crampons and axes at the top to scramble up the (class 2 and 3) summit block. There is a “hallway” slot of large rock you move through as you veer 50 or so degree mag. NE, which marks the “correct” path to the summit block. Then it is helpful to circumnavigate the true summit block to get an easier scramble up to the summit. We topped out at around 12:30 pm, making it about a 9hr ascent and took a long break to eat snacks and take daring pictures. A cloud rolled in, fogging our views, and initiating our descent. I remembered the fellow running the trail in the morning, and figured he’s probably still running to who knows where, chasing down the storm that never came.

The down climb was easier than expected on still firm snow due to the constant warm temps that day. Strapping the crampons back on, we mixed plunge stepping with side steps down the gullies and felt secure enough to not have to down climb (which we saw some parties do). Eventually, we utilized the butt paths to get some good glissading in, which felt refreshingly cold against my shorts. We eventually made our way down the burn, and through the dry creek bed, stopping briefly to plunge into a beautiful cove in the Lena Creek. By the time we got back to the Lake we were ready to be done, but had the final stretch of 3 miles or so ahead of us. I ran bits of the trail back while calculating in my head how many pounds I could shed off my beast of burden “training pack”. I also meticulously formulated my fast-food order for plan A, B, and C spots on the drive home, and soon enough was at the trailhead again around 8:15pm, marking about 16.5 hour total Car2Car. We clocked ourselves at about 17.5 miles and 6700 ft of gain. We saw a bunch of blooming flowers I can’t recall the names of, a few garden snakes, and very cool owl in the morning at the lake. We never ran into any bee or wasp nests that some have warned about (might not be the season for them). Overall, a great day of beautiful weather with a fun mix of hiking, snow climbing, and scrambling that made for a rewarding training trip.

The only negative being McDonald’s kicking me out before I could order my seconds (Bacon-Egg N cheese biscuit) for the drive home, despite saying they were 24/7! We all just needed a break by that point.

We climbed The Brothers 4/19-20: overall had great conditions in clear weather 25-50F and windy (20mph).

We hiked up to camp the night of 4/19 which was easy except the jungle gym through the creek a mile past Lena Lake. The trail crosses from climbers left to right side of the creek where there is an old broken bridge. We lost it when crossing and schwacked instead until we regained it. Followed it on the way down which was more pleasant. Camp was buried in snow but had a few dirt patches by trees so likely a few sites will be dry in the coming weeks. Plenty of water flowing near camp. 

The next morning we left camp at 0530 after below freezing temps overnight we had great conditions for following the standard avalanche gully full of snow, eventually kicking toes in and front pointing once in steeper terrain (last 1000 vertical feet, axe and crampons required). The hourglass had enough snow to climb up with a little scree/rock step. One section of climbing steep snow (70°?) to the summit on a NW aspect had a two inch crust over some dryish powder which was less pleasant but still worked. Late morning downclimb the snow softened enough for shallow heel plunges then glissade down lower. Some postholing near treeline. Overall a great time with lovely people and magnificent views. 

First of all, the trail report from 4 August is thorough and continues to accurately reflect trail conditions. I just wanted to add that there are now two hornets' nests directly on the trail, one about 1-2 miles before you reach the climber's camp and one just after you pass through it. We were a group of trail runners, but we still weren't moving fast enough to protect ourselves - all three of us finished the day with stings, and two of us had multiple stings. Based on the conversations we had with others on the trail, these must be particularly aggressive hornets, because they'd gotten virtually everyone at one point or another. (And I should note that they could be wasps or yellow jackets; we didn't get a good look at them, we just felt the very, very painful stings.) Everyone should take care on the trail right now, and those susceptible to allergic reactions might want to avoid it altogether.