The Brothers — Monday, May. 28, 2018

We are the Mountain Goats, Nathan (14) and Terrence (12) and this weekend we brothers climbed The Brothers.

We got to the Lena Lake parking area at around noon Saturday, and it was completely full - we had to park quite a ways down the road.  Please note that this trailhead requires a Northwest Forest Pass since it's federal land, NOT a Discover Pass.  We saw many cars getting ticketed for the wrong pass.

We left at 12:30 in overcast weather, but that was nice for carrying heavy packs.  The trail to Lena Lake is well maintained, fairly flat, and easy to follow.  It was a nice leisurely way to start our adventure.  Lots of people out, and at the lake there were tons of people setting up camp.  The creek crossing on the north side of the lake really isn't that bad despite what some reports say.  After the lake we entered the Valley of Silent Men which truly reflected its name.  There was so much moss and it's so green with huge trees, devils club and lots of blow downs and obstacles.  It was so beautiful and we felt like we were in a Lord of the Rings  movie! At this point it's easy to get off the trail - GPS helped a great deal.  There is one very difficult creek crossing where the log is at an angle and we ended up crawling across.

At 4:30 we arrived at Climbers Camp which is 6 1/4 miles in at 3,000 feet.  We got a really cool camp spot  right where the creeks come together next to another couple, Julie and Brian, who were very nice and who we saw for most of the rest of our trip.   They helped us start a great campfire, which you can do here because it's below 3,500 feet. We had great white noise from the raging creek and slept pretty well.  There are several camp sites hidden up and around this area, and there were two or three other small groups.

The next morning we got up with the sun, had a big breakfast and hit the trail at 6:30.  Navigation is tricky at the point as we headed west, following the creek over and under many fallen trees.  The occasional cairn and tape blaze helped, as well as our GPS, which was critical on this trip.  After a mile or so, you emerge from the trees into a huge avalanche/burn out slope that gets steep and more difficult to follow.  There were a couple small parties heading up at the same time, so between us we were able to pretty much stay on the trail.

At about 4,200 feet the real fun began!  Straight up south to north up a long snow slope up to the first rock band where we went left instead of right, which meant some extra dicey scrambling.  We got back on the path and the snow and continued up steeper and steeper, through the hour glass and towards the summit block.  Luckily the snow wasn't too hard, because the angle hear is quite steep (50-55 degrees) and so we didn't need to use crampons.  We did however, have our ice axes out and ready just in case.  As we headed up, there was a search and rescue helicopter that was hovering and going back and forth very low right above us.  Eventually we got off of the snow and onto rock for the last 400 vertical feet or so.  Again, we ended up going the "hard way", taking a left after the snow and wrapping around towards the summit block.  There were some dicey, exposed moves as we went up and over a big rock outcropping before descending a bit and picking up the faint, and relatively easy remaining class 3 moves to the summit at 10:30.

The summit was incredibly cool!  The views were stellar, and we were so lucky to be up there with clear skies.  We could see all the big mountains everywhere, up to Canada and down into Oregon.  The views into the Olympics  were insane.  Mount Washington and Mount Elinor in one direction, Constance and Warrior in the other, and countless mountains in the interior.  Just as we got to the top, search and rescue had left.  They had rescued someone who fell on the North Brother.  It was a bit windy, but the rocks were warm so we sat and lied down, eating our food, resting, and savoring the effort, slightly worried about the trip down.  

Coming down the rock was actually a bit easier than we thought - slippery in some spots, but we found an easier way down and picked up the snow.  There was still some good, safe glissading on the mountain, especially one last part where it was a good 1,000 foot continuous glissade.  Back off the snow, it was an incredibly tiring, long trip out.  We pick our way through the gully and the woods, broke down camp, soaked out sore feet in the creek, and headed out for the last 6.25 miles to the trailhead.  Summit to camp was about 3 hours 20 minutes and camp to trailhead was 3 hours 30 minutes.  We were so tired we could only go so fast.  Sore legs, aching feet, and tired shoulders.  Hungry and tired we got to the car at 7:40.

Unfortunately, everything was closed in Hoodsport,  and since we're kids, the Lucky Dog Casino denied us entry to the restaurant, so we had to go all the way to the Little Creek Casino outside of Shelton.  It was a long drive, but we had some great food at one of the restaurants there!

Not sure why some descriptions say this is 13 miles.  The Brothers is just under 18 miles round trip.  We were kind of surprised at first that there weren't more people, but actually this hike is so long and difficult and a little dangerous in spots, it's not surprising that there weren't a lot of people.  This is a really tough one, but so worth it with the unique rain forest, beautiful mountain and amazing news!  Thanks for readying and happy hiking!