Lena Lake — Sunday, Jul. 4, 1999

Olympic Peninsula > Hood Canal

We had a late start and didn't reach the trailhead until noon. A ranger was busily writing tickets for people who didn't have trail passes--and he told me there were many of them. There were thirty cars parked when we arrived, but the ranger told us that this was ""light"" for a major holiday weekend. We met a group of trail-workers from the Northwest Youth Corps who were doing impressive--and hard--work on this trail. The trail is snow-free all the way to Lower Lena Lake. We hiked to the far side of the lake for our lunch. There's a new log bridge over the inlet stream leading towards the Brothers trail. I was glad to see it, as the old one was so hard to climb up to (if you're as short as I am!). The weather was glorious after so much rain and the lake was higher than I've ever seen it. It covered the bottom of numerous trees along the shore.