Lena Lake, The Brothers — Friday, May. 29, 2009

Olympic Peninsula > Hood Canal

I followed the Lena Lake / Brothers trail to the end expecting to see the Brothers mountain across the valley…and never did see the mountain or an open valley. From Lena lake you follow a dry creek bed for about a mile, then a roaring creek for the next 3 miles .. all in a deep woods. You cross the creek 3 times on balance-beam bridges and hike up root/rocky stream beds until you reach the end of the trail at a junction of 2 creeks and a large campsite. From there, I did not see any maintained trail to follow. I waded across the creek and walked 15 minutes up each creek and didn’t see any obvious path..and since I was alone, decided to have lunch and return. On the way out, I met 2 people at Lena Lake on the way in who said they went up the Brothers Mtn a few years ago and took the left fork at the end of the trail. After about ½ hour you are at the base of the mountain and then it’s all up. Don’t think I’ll return again, but got lots of exercise with about 15 miles RT and 2500’.