Lena Lake — Wednesday, Apr. 15, 2009

Olympic Peninsula > Hood Canal

The trailhead register indicated that a half-dozen parties had been there earlier on Tax Day, but by my after 5pm start they had all cleared out and I had the lake entirely to myself. Trail is in good shape and the lakeside campsites are snow free. The next day I did snowline probers. First up the Brothers Trail - I got well past the first bridge in the "Valley of the Silent Men" before the snow carpeted into snowshoe-deep drifts, maybe 2 miles. Then up almost to Upper Lena Lake - this trail is closer to melted out, although there are some downed trees, streams running down the trail, etc. And the snow does deepen just before the upper lake, with a few traverses en route where I wouldn't have minded an ice ax to ward off a potential slide into the creek. But the view of the Brothers where it opens out was definitely worth it. Then a nap in the hammock and out, again with (unusual for this popular area) solitude.