The Brothers, Lena Lake — Friday, Jun. 18, 2004

Olympic Peninsula > Hood Canal

It's been 30 years since I was blown off ""The Brothers"" so I decided that we would try for the summit on Fathers day. We arrived at the trailhead on Saturday. The first 3 miles to lower Lena lake were a breeze. Trail's in excellent shape. The final 3 miles up the east fork of Lena creek to climbers camp were in pretty fair shape as well. A few blow downs but not too bad. No snow in the area and the creek is running fast. We were lucky to find a camp just as 2 guys were packing up and heading home. Julie (AKA: J-Girl) and ""Joe-Dog"" stayed in camp while Josh and I set off at 0645 Sunday to climb the mountain. Route was easy to follow and we didn't hit serious snow until about 4800 feet. A party a head of us had kicked steps up through the snow couloir so the going was pretty easy but fairly steep. We had climbing gear so it was no problem. We deviated a little bit up near the summit pyramid. We climbed the short SW ridge which was very exposed but easy class 4 scrambling. I'm glad we had a rope. Saw 1 mountain goat near the summit, very cool! Views on top were magnificent. 4 hours up, 2 hours down to climbers camp. Then the long 6 mile hike out. We saw several guys doing this entire trip in one day....BRUTAL!