Lena Lake — Thursday, Apr. 27, 2023

If you read Craig Romano’s (2007) trail report (Day Hiking Olympic Peninsula) on Lena Lake, you might be deterred to try it out. He mentions crowd, lots of trash, ding-a-ling switchback cutters, and neophyte hikers. Despite his description of this very popular hike, my husband and I were not deterred. Yesterday, we decided to give it a try. We are so glad we did. We arrived at the TH around 9:38am and only a few cars were parked in the lot. The wonderfully paved road made it so not onerous to get to. The easy grade trail (1300 gain over 3.2 miles) made for a pleasant, not too huffy puffy hike. The dapple-lit trail was lovely as were the views of Mount Washington and Mount Jefferson. About 2 miles into the hike, the trail was wet due to underground streams. It was not much of a problem. Encouraged by Romano’s suggestion to continue along the lake for a bit where we would find a nice lunch spot, we forged ahead. However, we never made it to Romano’s nice lunch spot due to the lack of a way to cross the roaring creek. We turned around, retracing our steps and found a lovely spot along the lake where we plopped our selves down to eat some lunch. The breeze, birds, emerald green lake, and pussy willows all combined to make for a lovely lunch spot.

If you want to do this hike, my recommendation is to give it a try in early Spring or late Fall. Hiking the trail at these times of the year will help you avoid the neophyte-trash-dropping, switchback-cutting hoards that Romano talks about.